PXI Summary
NI-VISA provides a convenient means of accessing advanced functionality of PCI and PXI devices. The alternative to using NI-VISA for PCI or PXI device communication is writing a kernel driver. By using NI-VISA, you avoid having to learn how to write kernel drivers, you avoid having to learn a different kernel model for each Windows operating system, and you gain platform independence and portability by scaling to other operating systems such as LabVIEW RT now and others in the future.