Representative End User Clients
Representative Automation Clients
Representative Software Clients
OPC UA has certainly been gaining traction as a standard for connecting the plant floor to the enterprise, which was certainly evident at the recent Hannover Fair, but it appears that IoT is being threaded in as common denominator, based on the OPC Foundation’s recent announcements. The OPC Foundation pursues interoperability in industrial automation by creating and maintaining open specifications that standardize communication of acquired process data, alarm and event records, historical data, and batch data to multi-vendor enterprise systems and between production devices. The goal for OPC is for it to be a standard for interoperability for moving information vertically from the factory floor through the enterprise of multi-vendor systems as well as providing interoperability between devices on different industrial networks from different vendors.
An example of this is Microsoft announcing that it is working with the OPC Foundation to enable IIoT scenarios through interoperability between the applications and industrial equipment compliant with the OPC UA standard. Microsoft will enable its IIoT customers to connect to a range of manufacturing equipment and software that can even cover both new and legacy equipment with support of the OPC UA open source software stack. Interoperability between devices and assets is critical for plants and factories, which are increasingly bringing new and even legacy systems online and modernizing their plants and facilities. OPC UA provides a standardized communication, security, and metadata and semantics abstraction for a wide range of industrial equipment. It also serves as a gateway to cloud-enabled industrial equipment, including data and device management, insights, and machine learning capabilities for equipment that was not designed with these capabilities built in. Microsoft’s extended support for the OPC UA open source software stack spans its IoT offerings, from local connectivity with Windows devices to cloud connectivity via the Microsoft Azure platform. Integration with Azure IoT allows customers to send OPC UA telemetry data to the Azure cloud, as well as to command and control their OPC UA devices remotely from the Azure cloud. In addition, Windows 10 devices running the Universal Windows Platform can connect and openly communicate with other IoT devices via OPC UA.
Another example is the OPC Foundation and W3C signing a memorandum of understanding in which both organizations agree to closely cooperate to ensure interoperability for IoT. OPC and W3C have mutual goals, requirements and use cases developing an infrastructure to promote and facilitate across domain applications for open markets for horizontal integration along the value chain and supply chain, and vertical integration from manufacturing cells to enterprise management systems. The collaboration provides the infrastructure for the Industrie 4.0 reference architecture facilitating the vision and execution of a “Smart Factory”. OPC and W3C will collaborate with a focus on a common framework for semantic interoperability and secure services across platforms that have broad applicability beyond digital automation. This collaboration will focus on the underpinning necessary to achieve seamless interoperability in the IIoT. The OPC Foundation and W3C collaboration will result in the development of specifications, white papers, guidelines and processes that provide the infrastructure necessary for the two organizations to promote system wide interoperability as the foundation of IoT.
Additionally, the OPC Foundation and the OpenFog Consortium (OpenFog) announced a liaison to collaborate on technical specifications, white papers, guidelines and processes to enable system wide IoT interoperability around manufacturing. Deliverables from this collaboration will result in a cohesive set of standards focused on digital factories, as well as the members of both organizations in their pursuit of developing and achieving information integration across the multitude of domains. The OpenFog Consortium is a global nonprofit that is defining and advancing fog technology; developing an OpenFog architecture; demonstrating feasibility and interoperability of new concepts through testbeds; and growing the overall market for fog solutions. Fog is "cloud" computing at the ground level or the edge.
From ARC’s perspective as a major advocate of both the IIoT and the OPC Foundation, we are glad that the OPC Foundation is taking continued steps to help its users embrace the IIoT and make it easier for manufacturers and processors to enter the IIoT world. Most factories and plants want to deploy IIoT applications, but are often seeking guidance as where to start. Those who deploy OPC UA will now be able to better leverage those plant floor to enterprise communications as a vehicle to participate in IIoT applications. ARC expects that the OPC Foundation will be continuing to sign more agreements with a variety of standards bodies, consortiums and hardware and software suppliers to make this process easier for end users and OEMs to begin their IIoT journey.
An example of this is Microsoft announcing that it is working with the OPC Foundation to enable IIoT scenarios through interoperability between the applications and industrial equipment compliant with the OPC UA standard. Microsoft will enable its IIoT customers to connect to a range of manufacturing equipment and software that can even cover both new and legacy equipment with support of the OPC UA open source software stack. Interoperability between devices and assets is critical for plants and factories, which are increasingly bringing new and even legacy systems online and modernizing their plants and facilities. OPC UA provides a standardized communication, security, and metadata and semantics abstraction for a wide range of industrial equipment. It also serves as a gateway to cloud-enabled industrial equipment, including data and device management, insights, and machine learning capabilities for equipment that was not designed with these capabilities built in. Microsoft’s extended support for the OPC UA open source software stack spans its IoT offerings, from local connectivity with Windows devices to cloud connectivity via the Microsoft Azure platform. Integration with Azure IoT allows customers to send OPC UA telemetry data to the Azure cloud, as well as to command and control their OPC UA devices remotely from the Azure cloud. In addition, Windows 10 devices running the Universal Windows Platform can connect and openly communicate with other IoT devices via OPC UA.
Another example is the OPC Foundation and W3C signing a memorandum of understanding in which both organizations agree to closely cooperate to ensure interoperability for IoT. OPC and W3C have mutual goals, requirements and use cases developing an infrastructure to promote and facilitate across domain applications for open markets for horizontal integration along the value chain and supply chain, and vertical integration from manufacturing cells to enterprise management systems. The collaboration provides the infrastructure for the Industrie 4.0 reference architecture facilitating the vision and execution of a “Smart Factory”. OPC and W3C will collaborate with a focus on a common framework for semantic interoperability and secure services across platforms that have broad applicability beyond digital automation. This collaboration will focus on the underpinning necessary to achieve seamless interoperability in the IIoT. The OPC Foundation and W3C collaboration will result in the development of specifications, white papers, guidelines and processes that provide the infrastructure necessary for the two organizations to promote system wide interoperability as the foundation of IoT.
Additionally, the OPC Foundation and the OpenFog Consortium (OpenFog) announced a liaison to collaborate on technical specifications, white papers, guidelines and processes to enable system wide IoT interoperability around manufacturing. Deliverables from this collaboration will result in a cohesive set of standards focused on digital factories, as well as the members of both organizations in their pursuit of developing and achieving information integration across the multitude of domains. The OpenFog Consortium is a global nonprofit that is defining and advancing fog technology; developing an OpenFog architecture; demonstrating feasibility and interoperability of new concepts through testbeds; and growing the overall market for fog solutions. Fog is "cloud" computing at the ground level or the edge.
From ARC’s perspective as a major advocate of both the IIoT and the OPC Foundation, we are glad that the OPC Foundation is taking continued steps to help its users embrace the IIoT and make it easier for manufacturers and processors to enter the IIoT world. Most factories and plants want to deploy IIoT applications, but are often seeking guidance as where to start. Those who deploy OPC UA will now be able to better leverage those plant floor to enterprise communications as a vehicle to participate in IIoT applications. ARC expects that the OPC Foundation will be continuing to sign more agreements with a variety of standards bodies, consortiums and hardware and software suppliers to make this process easier for end users and OEMs to begin their IIoT journey.