Welcome to the compliance corner, here is what is new related to certification of OPC UA and with regards to Certification.
During the summer we completed the audit for the ITEI hosted OPC Foundation® Certification Lab in China. The OPCF Certification Lab passed the audit for all capabilities and extended the capabilities of the lab to include Ethernet-APL testing. They have also been verified for the use of the new CTT Lite tool and to provide general information model verification. The Lab has added new test personnel to support the continued demand for Certification. In general, demand in China for OPC UA products, including certified products, has also increased.
While being in China we also attended OPC China’s first IOP Workshop. The IOP was held in Beijing hosted at the ITEI technology center. This IOP was held in Chinese and was open to all OPCF Members. The workshop attracted strong regional participation, with more than 80% of attendees representing organizations from China including the major Chinese vendors of automation products. For most of the attendees this was their first IOP, but they all jumped into the interoperability testing. The IOP was very successful and additional IOPs are planned for next year.
The European IOP Workshop is scheduled for September 28th – 2nd of October in Erlangen Germany, hosted by Siemens. Although the registration is nearing capacity, it is still open for OPC Foundation paying Members on the OPC Foundation Web Site (https://opcfoundation.org/event-detail/opc-interoperability-workshop-2026-europe/).
The website has already opened for registration for the next North American IOP Workshop (week of April 19th, 2027), which will be hosted Beckhoff in Cambridge Canada (near Toronto). For additional details and for registration see https://opcfoundation.org/event-detail/opc-interoperability-workshop-2027-north-america/. O-PAS vendors that are not OPCF Members should contact Paul Hunkar to be registered.
Just a reminder: Support for certification 1.03 will end at the end of 2026. Vendors should be targeting a 1.05 version of OPC UA. OPC UA 1.05.00 was released in 2021 and the specifications, SDK’s and toolkits are available for implementations. The CTT for 1.05 testing is available to verify the implementations.
If you do have questions on these topics or are interested in getting involved in our activities, please do not hesitate to contact us at compliance@opcfoundation.org
Paul & Alexander