Agilent has expanded its commitment to open systems for chromatography data systems (CDSs) by collaborating with Persistent Systems and joining the Drivercentral.net instrument driver portal.
Multi-vendor instrument connectivity is a core need in many laboratories because scientists often operate diverse instrumentation from multiple vendors in a single laboratory.
For efficient laboratory operation and the sharing of instruments and data, laboratories require a single data system to manage all their instruments and create reports in a common format.
Control for multi-vendor instrumentation is a core functionality of Agilent's EZChrom Elite CDS and Openlab enterprise platforms, with support for more than 20 vendors.
Led by Persistent Systems, a provider of software product development services, Drivercentral.net is an independent device-driver portal for analytical instrument driver purchase.
Agilent is collaborating with Persistent Systems in three main ways: transferring many of its non-Agilent instrument drivers to Persistent Systems for further development and support; providing documentation on its RC.NET technology to convert legacy drivers to the new standard and develop new drivers based on RC.NET; and joining Drivercentral.net to make its own analytical instrument drivers available through the portal.
Bruce von Herrmann, vice-president and general manager of Agilent's Software and Informatics business unit, said: 'Agilent supports open systems and open access to the RC.NET standard so that customers can choose instrumentation from other vendors, when necessary, while still maintaining their Agilent data system.
'We understand the need to maintain a familiar software user interface and workflow,' he added.
