A central challenge of Industrie 4.0 and the Industrial Internet of things (IIoT) is secure standardized data and the exchange of information between devices, machines, and services from various industries. The OPC UA standard is the only mandatory protocol required in the criteria checklist of “Product capabilities for Industrie 4.0 Products” provided by the German Industrie 4.0 Platform.
As information workflows cross competence domains in several directions, users and providers start looking for a way to coalesce those standards into a farther-reaching, whole-encompassing interoperability “grammar”.
That is one of the main reasons why OPC UA was created.
Any client that needs to work with an OPC UA Server has to understand the information model present in the server and discover the instance of the model to be able to wire up to the correct nodes to exchange data. The usage of NodesetFiles [sic] greatly simplifies the exchange of OPC UA information models and the configuration of clients and servers. Users can be assured that their configuration is correct and it can minimize testing of systems.
Machine tool builder exeron is convinced that OPC UA is the way forward. The specialist in electrical discharge machining (EDM) has started down that path by developing a communication solution based on the open IEC standard. The solution eliminates the proprietary interface between the HMI systems and CNC controllers of the company’s EDM line.
For one large European transportation customer, it was critical to be able to leverage existing Building Information Modeling (BIM) models in order to quickly and easily integrate its building systems into its monitoring and control systems, as well as continue to work with its existing connected equipment and processes. As shown at an event in Paris, ICONICS is able to keep its customer’s operations on the right track.
Managing security certificates is one of the most important parts of establishing an OPC UA connection. Cogent’s DataHub makes it easy to accept or reject certificates using its built-in management tool. Plus with its latest release, they’ve added the ability to act as both an OPC UA Client and Server.
Two important Memorandums of Understanding were signed in recent months. First, OPC UA is finding itself used in applications beyond traditional manufacturing. In this case, commercial professional kitchens. Second, an MOU was signed with the VDMA Robotics organization. Here, OPC UA was chosen as the easiest route to M2M integration.
New products this month include DataHub version 8 from Cogent; a new OPC UA SDK from Matrikon; an embedded OPC UA toolkit from Softing; safety plus OPC UA from B&R; and OPC UA communication for power supplies from Siemens.
2016 was a outstanding year with all the new collaborations and extensions to the OPC UA technology. 2017 will significantly exceed the success of 2016! OPC UA technology development is well underway for the publish/subscribe architecture which will further extend information integration and system wide interoperability from the embedded world to the enterprise. From an event perspective, the OPC Foundation is hosting many of its own events and participating in a multitude of tradeshows internationally.
We’ve expanded the newsletter program from four newsletters in 2016 to doing six newsletters in 2017 because of the volume of information and making sure that we are providing the latest and greatest timely information. Thanks again for taking time out of your busy day to read this edition of the OPC Foundation OPC connect newsletter.
The OPC Foundation membership really is a diverse set of companies developing products and/or services for many different domains and vertical markets. Corporate members that are Class A members are recognized here that have joined since November 1, 2016.
Also, the OPC Foundation is proud to announce the availability of our new European Certification Test Lab.
Finally, the next OPC interoperability workshop is scheduled for the week of April 24th, 2017 in Phoenix, AZ.