The OPC Foundation has delivered the first 30 of 40 “Azure IoT Suite Connected Factory” demonstration walls that will be prominently displayed internationally at the Microsoft Technology Centers. These walls show the power of the Microsoft commitment to embrace the OPC UA interoperability standard as the secure solution for seamless integration of OT and IT.
These interactive walls demonstrate vendor devices from different verticals showing a bidirectional connection to Azure:
- Device-to-Cloud (D2C): Devices push telemetry data to the Azure IoT platform
- Cloud-to-Device (C2D): Allows secure browsing of the rich OPC UA information model from the Azure IoT platform and optionally “command and control” machines
Microsoft first demonstrated OPC UA integration into Azure IoT Suite at Hanover fair in April 2016. Over 30 companies participated by providing OPC UA enabled devices for an integrated Connected Factory demonstration. This Hanover demonstration was later turned into a decision by Microsoft and the OPC Foundation to actively promote the Connected Factory demonstration by developing freestanding OPC UA demonstration walls. The Connected Factory demonstrates the power of OPC UA technology as the solution for Industrial IoT, Industrie 4.0, Made in China 2025, Korea Manufacturing and other initiatives.
Jason Zander, Corp. Vice President Microsoft Azure said during the opening ceremony of the Microsoft Innovation Center in Taiwan: “We see OPC UA as a critical standard for ensuring interoperability between manufacturing processes and equipment, spanning decades of investment for many companies. We have been working with the OPC Foundation on building up 40 OPC UA devices walls which are currently being distributed to the Microsoft Executive Briefing Center in Redmond, worldwide Microsoft Technology Centers, the IoT Labs in Redmond, Germany and China and the newly established IoT Innovation Center in Taiwan, to demonstrate the strong ecosystem with connected OPC UA devices and the Connected Factory preconfigured solution running on the Azure IoT platform.”
“Microsoft is truly committed to the OPC Foundation vision of complete interoperability from the embedded world to the cloud. The Azure IoT Suite Connected Factory walls are an outstanding international demonstration of Microsoft and major automation vendors to provide OPC UA enabled solutions that truly meet and exceed the expectations of the end-user community,” says OPC Foundation Vice President Stefan Hoppe.
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