In earlier times, OPC learned a hard lesson that tying a spec to a particular wire protocol leads to obsolescence as technologies evolve. This is why OPC UA has a layered architecture, which makes it possible to create mappings for any number of transports like JSON HTTP or UA TCP for Client/Server models and MQTT or UA UDP for Pub/Sub models.
Three years after its launch, the OPC Foundation’s Field Level Communications (FLC) initiative has completed the OPC UA FX (Field eXchange) specifications. In addition, a multi-vendor demo with controllers and network infrastructure components from 20 companies has been realized.
More than 320 experts from over 60 OPC Foundation member companies have been contributing to the OPC UA FX (Field eXchange) specifications which extend the OPC UA framework down to the field-level. The first public specification for Controller-to-Controller is expected by end of 2021 with a demo being shown at SPS in November.
The OPC Foundation congratulates the Ethernet-APL Project on the announcement of their achievement of a critically important milestone of cross-vendor utilization of their standard. We have joined this initiative because we strongly believe that the combination of OPC UA over APL will be a key technology for decades to come.
Due to the criticality of Industrial Control Systems (ICS) and the desire to make process and business information available to anyone, anywhere, and at any time, the information that is exchanged must meet the security requirements of the site. The OPC UA standards are designed to meet these security requirements while maintaining the level of flexibility and control that site administrators expect.
This whitepaper is intended to provide guidelines and best practices for developing OPC UA based information models. It is not a formal specification, but recommends ways to create OPC UA information models that eventually lead to a better product.
The OPC Foundation will support the development and promotion of an Advanced Physical Layer (APL) for industrial Ethernet, suitable for use in demanding applications and hazardous locations in the process industry.
Three new updates are available on the collaborations front. First, the VDMA and VDW have joined forces to promote the use and dissemination of OPC UA standards under the umati label. Second, the EUROMAP Companion Spec for plastics and rubber machines based on OPC UA is released. Third, an OPC UA Companion Spec for PROFINET is released.
The OPC Foundation, ODVA, and Sercos International are pleased to announce a collaboration to develop a new generation of a best-in-class motion technology for industry: OPC UA Motion. A new Working Group is tasked with specifying the motion facet of Field Level Communications (FLC) to enable inter-vendor operation for motion automation.
This paper explores what OPC UA Certificates are and what they provide, how they are used in OPC UA, and how they fit into the security ‘stack’ of OPC UA. Additionally, it examines OPC UA encryption methodology and the key concepts of a layered security model.