OPC-UA: Technology advisory council, first products announced
Scottsdale, Ariz.—The OPC Foundation recently announced the establishment of a Technical Advisory Council (TAC) and the first demonstration products and deliverable technology based on OPC’s Unified Architecture (OPC-UA) connectivity solution.
Scottsdale, Ariz. —The OPC Foundation recently announced the establishment of a Technical Advisory Council (TAC) and the first demonstration products and deliverable technology based on OPC’s Unified Architecture (OPC-UA) connectivity solution. The TAC is made up of 19 members and will guide, monitor, and approve the technical deliverables of Unified Architecture technology. The demonstration of first products based on UA was at the OPC Foundation’s DevCon 2007 (developer’s conference) June 25-28.Unified Architecture is a platform- and operating system-independent, firewall-friendly, secure, reliable solution for enterprise-wide connectivity and open data exchange among automation and IT systems in manufacturing enterprises worldwide. It supports a variety of operating systems and programming languages, including Windows, Java, Microsoft’s .NET, and C++. This means that servers can be as easily embedded in PLCs and products such as PC-based systems.Tight certification disciplines are implemented to ensure the quality of Unified Architecture products and they have to be approved by a third party. OPC has invited a variety of stakeholders to be part of the process including board and non-board members who have committed to UA and other organizations. Organizations involved in the council include Emerson, Honeywell, Invensys, Matrikon, Rockwell, and Siemens.TAC members act as the representatives of all members, gatekeepers for OPC, and a steering committee driving future strategy.Demonstration PLC applications shown at DevCon were from Kepware and Beckhoff. The Kepware server provided UA support for a ControlLogix PLC from Rockwell Automation, while the Beckhoff demo showed UA running on a Beckhoff PLC. An Iconics client application drew data from both of these servers in real time during the demo.—Edited by Lisa Sutor , Control Engineering news desk
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