The OPC Foundation has been aggressively working on enhancing it certification program. We have been working on new tools and improving old tools for helping vendors verify and certify their OPC UA applications. This includes working with many information modeling groups on their certification. One example is the Open Process Automation Foundation and their O-PAS standard. O-PAS is a standard of standards and OPC UA is a key part. They will require 100% certification of all O-PAS compliant products, which will require OPC UA certification including a wide range of existing profiles and facets. We have also been working with the Field Level Communication (FLC) committee to ensure that certification will be available for FLC shortly after it is released.
We have recently released a new beta version of the Compliance Test Tool (CTT). This version of the CTT includes 1.04 testing as well as a new 1.03 version. It is available for both Windows platforms as well as Linux platforms. Both the 1.04 and 1.03 releases include enhanced testing for multi-dimensional arrays, multiple fixes, and new features like Audit testing, Historical Access testing and Aggregate testing. This release also includes the first public companion specification testing. It includes PLCopen test scripts, opening those tests to vendors and end-users. The PLCopen test scripts include information model validation as well functionality validation. We are now focusing on adding testing for the new 1.04 Alarming functionality.
Recently we have experienced a large increase in demand for client certification. With the new CTT versions we will also release new test cases and script enhancements for OPC UA clients. New client test cases have been defined, increasing the testing scope and therefore the quality of certified client products.
The latest InterOP (IOP) took place at Honeywell in Phoenix on March 9–13. These workshops are “THE” event for testing OPC products for interoperability and preparing them for the lab testing and for the market. We have added additional Pub/Sub testing and a number of new 1.04 functions. We have published the entire IOP schedule for the year, and look forward to having multiple IOP events. In addition, we are planning a number of information-specific IOP events later in the year.
Interested in being part of the important OPC Foundation’s certification strategy? We are always looking for volunteers to help us make the OPC Foundation certification and process work for you! Please contact us at Compliance_AT_OPCFoundation.org
Paul Hunkar
Alexander Almendinger