Good answers, Thanks Guys!
I've alreadycreated an SQL DB, set up SQL permissions etc, I was just struggling with how the user would interface with that DB. FTP seems like a viable alternate route. I'll explore that.
Modbus for interaction. Got it.
I think the only outstanding question is group assignment. Is there a way, from one screen or webserver screen, that a user could see 10 active machines and group them something like 5 machines to "Assembly Line 1", 4 to "Assembly line 2" and 1 unassigned? The idea here is that once assigned to a group they could all act together on the common recipe call. Perhaps this is more about the method of going about it and Modbus could work for this too?
Thanks