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OPC UA “REST” Subgroup Launched

    Introduction

    The OPC UA Specification includes transport patterns like Client/Server or Pub/Sub and binding to different transport protocols like TCP, UDP, or MQTT, mainly appropriate for OT environments.

    The IT world desires to utilize the data from the OT space to be combined with additional concepts like Asset Administration Shell (AAS), Data Spaces, Digital Twins and Metaverse. All these initiatives and solutions are about sharing information between multiple companies with different use-cases like product lifecycle data (AAS) or governance data (DataSpaces). In most cases, they exchange the data via proprietary or standardized HTTP REST-Interfaces.

    Purpose

    The REST group, as a subgroup of the OPC Foundation UA Working Group, will discuss use-cases for the integration of OPC UA via REST and propose potential extensions for the OPC UA specification. It is a special-purpose subgroup meant for IT (especially REST) experts and participants who work in edge and cloud computing areas to focus on discussions for these use-cases.

    Scope

    Non-exclusive examples for work items include:

    • Generic REST interface definition for common OPC UA services (Read, Write, Call, …)
    • Standardized mapping of OPC UA service parameters to datatypes commonly used in RESTful APIs
    • How the existing session-less OPC UA service can be used with a REST interface.
    • Define a concept to provide REST interfaces for Companion Specification use-cases
    • Define requirements for security
    • Building prototypes and a demonstration
    • Define an OpenAPI-compatible REST interface using Swagger.

    Involvement

    This group is open for OPC Members of categories “Corporate Members”, “End-Users”, “Non-Voting-Members” but not open for “UA-Logo-Members” (https://opcfoundation.org/membership/benefits/).
    For more information please contact Karola Wauro (karola.wauro[AT]opcfoundation.org), OPC Foundation.