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OPC Foundation Collaborations Update

    The OPEN-SCS Working Group (OPEN-SCS) is partnered with the OPC Foundation to develop an open source standard in the Packaging Serialization Global Name Registry and an associated set of subscription-based work products.
    With the companion specification for Auto ID devices, the OPC Foundation has shown how important it is to use a standardized technology for secure communication in an industrial environment.
    A release candidate for the OPC UA — IEC 61850 companion specification document is planned for Q2 2017, as work continues harmonizing these two widespread industrial standards.

    Leading Healthcare Providers Use OPC UA

      Softing Industrial has signed an agreement with the OPC Foundation to supply the OPC’s Open-SCS working group with Softing’s OPC UA toolkits and to offer technical consultancy to the group.

      Bringing the Power of the Cloud to Industrial Automation

        The needs of industry have been the driving force behind the new OPC UA Publish/Subscribe (PubSub) Specification. This specification layers OPC UA on top of message based middleware (AMQP, MQTT, XMPP, etc.) allowing users to take advantage of OPC UA features such as the robust information modelling framework while adapting to message-centered communication paradigms.

        Contextual Services and Predictive Maintenance

          In this paper, we present a complete IoT (Internet of Things) system, starting from a network of smart sensors and actuators. To ensure interoperability and a high level of standardization, a customized but compatible OPC UA industrial middleware implementation, named OPC UA / ROSA, allows secured communications. It also acts as a distributed contextual services discovery mechanism.

          Security Check Performed by German Federal Office for Information Security

            During Hannover Fair, the BSI (German Federal Office for Security in information Technology) published their results of an OPC UA security analysis with respect to its relevance in the German Industrie 4.0 initiative. The results are publicized on the BSI and on the OPC Foundation websites. A statement from the BSI reads: “An extensive analysis of the security functions in the specification of OPC UA confirmed that OPC UA was designed with a focus on security and does not contain systematic security vulnerabilities.”

            Why Semantics Matter

              While OPC UA today is mostly recognized for its communication virtues (regarding scalability, security, performance, platform-independence), one of its most exciting features remains in the shadows. Information modeling, or the ability to express not only data but also the meaning of data, is a key concept in the quest to make systems more intelligent, more autonomous and more evolvable. While the full potential of information modeling in industrial applications remains to be demonstrated by academic research, many of its core ideas can be applied right now.

              Open Shared Source Code and Specifications Program

                The OPC Foundation opens the doors to facilitate increased adoption of OPC Unified Architecture technology beyond industrial automation! The OPC Foundation is implementing an “open shared source” strategy…

                How OPC Server and SISORT®DA system control 29 substations without SCADA

                  by Philippe Maurin, Gustavo Ferraz, Eduardo Freitas, RD&I, ORTENG Equipamentos e Sistemas.

                  ORTENG is supplying the electrical and automation systems of 29 substations with 1,431 IEDs for oil refinery Abreu e Lima of Petrobras, which is being built at Ipojuca, Brazil. Each substation has at least one SISORT DA system working in a redundant configuration with a total of 44 systems and a total of 80,000 OPC items. Each system has an OPC Server (SISORT-OPC Server) connected to at least two (and up to six) OPC Clients, including DCS OPC Clients and Event Recorder OPC Clients.

                  Seamless data exchange

                    by Georg Suess, Operational Marketing, and Vaclav Bouse, Product Manager, Softing Industrial Automation GmbH

                    With the industry-wide trend towards horizontal and vertical integration, intelligence is moving from supervisory control systems to local components. This development is leading to a growing need for communication for which the open OPC UA standard provides an ideal solution because it can also be used for embedded devices.