SPONOSORED BY: Integration Objects
In today’s industrial environment where Industrial Internet of Things and Industry 4.0 are the leading trends, the sheer volume of data generated by machines, sensors, and cyber-physical systems has grown exponentially. This surge in data is a double-edge sword: while it provides unprecedented opportunities for optimizing operations, improving efficiency, and enhancing decision-making, it also presents significant challenges regarding data management and decentralized data sources. These lead to:
- Interoperability problems that can arise from using disparate communication protocols between various devices and systems.
- Lack of horizontal and vertical integration that arises from having multiple data sources instead of a centralized platform.
At the heart of many industrial automation systems, OPC UA (Open Platform Communication Unified Architecture) has become the key standard in resolving interoperability problems. Its platform independent nature made it widely adopted in automation devices such as PLCs and RTUs as well as edge devices. This resulted in the proliferation of the number of OPC UA servers, even when considering the same industrial site, each handling specific information model and data streams from different parts of the operation, consequently a lack of a complete view of the information available. Client applications would need to connect to multiple OPC UA Servers to access the data and manage multiple models in order to collect the right information. This kind of meshed architecture introduces a lot of challenges.
Challenges of Managing Data from Multiple OPC UA Servers
These challenges can complicate data integration, analysis, and overall system performance. Some of the key issues faced are the following:
- Data Fragmentation: With multiple OPC UA servers managing different segments of the operation, data becomes fragmented across several data sources. This fragmentation makes it difficult to obtain a comprehensive view of the entire system, leading to potential blind spots in monitoring and analysis.
- Inconsistent Data Formats: Different servers may handle data in varying formats, units, or naming conventions, complicating the user’s process of integrating and analyzing this data.
- Scalability issues: as operations expand, adding more OPC UA servers to handle increased data loads can strain the existing infrastructure especially when multiple OPC UA client applications try to connect to these servers. This kind of meshed architecture would put a strain on the OPC UA Servers as they have to support multiple client connections and requests at the same time increasing their resources usage.
- Security Concerns: each OPC UA server represents a potential vulnerability in the OT network as OPC UA servers tend to reside on the OT side and OPC UA Clients tend on the IT side. With the growing number of servers and required client connections, the attack surface increases and so does the challenge of maintaining robust security across the entire system.
- Maintenance and Management Overhead: the more servers in operation, the higher the maintenance and management overhead. Configuring the required connections and security settings, regular updates, troubleshooting, and monitoring of each server demand significant resources, diverting attention from other critical tasks.
Given these challenges, the traditional approach of managing individual OPC UA servers is becoming increasingly untenable. To address this growing complexity, the concept of an OPC UA aggregator is emerging as a powerful solution.
Introducing OPC UA Universal Server: an OPC UA Server Aggregator by Integration Objects
The OPC UA Universal Server is an IT-OT Integration Platform designed to integrate data from multiple OPC UA servers into one cohesive system. The OPC UA Universal Server exemplifies the aggregator’s role by:
- Providing OPC UA Client connectors that handle the communications with source OPC UA Servers, the data gathering and availability.
- Serving as central hub for integrating and managing data from multiple OPC UA servers, offering a unified access to OPC UA Client applications.
By doing so, the OPC UA Universal Server eliminates the issues of data fragmentation, ensuring that information is consistent and easily accessible. It reduces the complexity of managing multiple servers by providing a centralized point of access to client applications.
This not only improves the scalability and performance of the system but also enhances security by centralizing data access controls and monitoring.
How the OPC UA Universal Server Addresses Multiple OPC UA Servers Challenges
- Data Fragmentation: The OPC UA Universal Server consolidates data from multiple OPC UA sources into a single, unified platform. This centralization eliminates data fragmentation, providing users with a cohesive view of their entire operation and client applications with access to a centralized OPC UA Server.
- Inconsistent Data Formats: The OPC UA Universal Server integrates the information models of multiple OPC UA Servers into a single model that can be fine-tuned by the end user. It supports data access, historical access as well as alarms and conditions capabilities. This ensures consistency across all data streams, facilitating smooth integration and analysis.
- Scalability Issues: The OPC UA Universal Server is designed to scale efficiently, supporting a wide number of OPC UA Servers. Its distributed architecture, combined with features like automatic load distribution and seamless reconnection, ensures that the system remains robust and performant as it grows. Moving from a meshed architecture to a centralized architecture eliminates the need to manage multiple OPC UA Client connections on the OPC UA Servers side. Refer to the architecture figure.
- Security Concerns: The OPC UA Universal Server supports DMZ based architectures allowing to secure the communications with OT OPC UA Servers. It also supports user authentication, TLS/SSL certificates, and data encryption, ensuring that all data exchanges are secure. Additionally, it allows for the publication of OPC UA data to leading cloud platforms like AWS and Azure while maintaining the highest security standards and without opening IT access to the OT network.
- Maintenance and Management Overhead: By centralizing multiple OPC UA servers into a single platform, the OPC UA Universal Server reduces the complexity of managing diverse systems as OPC UA Client connectors can be managed remotely from the centralized platform. Its user-friendly configuration tools and advanced data processing capabilities make maintenance and management more efficient, significantly lowering operational overhead.
In addition to addressing these challenges, the OPC UA Universal Server offers:
- Secure integration with other data sources by supporting various industrial and IoT protocols such as Modbus, DNP3, S7, OPC Classic, MQTT, AMQP and REST as well as other data stores such as SQL like databases, NoSQL databases and timeseries historians.
- Advanced features such as data modeling, time series data historian, and visualization capabilities through dashboarding and SCADA. These tools enable real-time monitoring, control, and in-depth analysis, helping industries derive meaningful insights and make informed decisions.
- Reliable data handling mechanisms, including protocol conversion, store-and-forward, and automatic reconnection capabilities.
The OPC UA Universal Server ensures data integrity even in the most challenging conditions, making it an essential tool for optimizing industrial data management and enhancing overall operational efficiency.
In a world where data-driven decision-making is crucial, the OPC UA Universal Server stands out as an indispensable tool for achieving seamless and secure IT-OT integration, ensuring data consistency, and optimizing overall operational performance. By adopting this powerful platform, industries can harness the full potential of their data, driving innovation, efficiency, and growth in an increasingly competitive landscape.
About Integration Objects
Integration Objects is a world-leading industry 4.0 solutions provider for digital transformation, advanced solutions in machine learning and predictive analytics, integrated command & control centers, Cloud services, industrial internet of things (IIoT), cyber security, OPC and Big Data Analytics, for process, power and utilities industries, defense, and governmental institutions.