OPC Unified Architecture / OPC UA – Smart Factory Glossar

OPC UA is a standardized interface to exchange data between machines and industrial equipment in production. The software's platform-independent and service-oriented architecture enables communication and interoperability for the entire company by providing data such as measured values or parameters as machine-readable information. The specifications were made by the OPC Foundation: the abbreviation OPC stands for Open Platform Communications and UA for Unified Architecture. The information model used is specified in the standard IEC 62541. OPC UA is a standard for Industry 4.0 applications and has been supported by the manufacturing IT systems from MPDV for many years.

 

What are the benefits of OPC UA?

OPC technologies were developed to enable the simple and secure exchange of information between platforms of different suppliers and to integrate the platforms cost-effectively into the IT infrastructure. According to the OPC Foundation, there are more than 5,200 suppliers who have developed over 42,000 different OPC products that are used in more than 52 million applications.

• The vendor lock-in effect is eliminated as OPC UA supports a vendor-independent exchange of information.
• Data is buffered to ensure that interrupted connections do not cause any data loss.
• OPC UA permanently monitors the connection in both directions and identifies interruptions very early.
• Information to be exchanged can be easily configured.
• Technical resources are released for more important work.

Source

OPC Unified Architecture: Wikipedia, 18.01.2024 [online] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/OPC_Unified_Architecture (requested on 22.03.2024).

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