The new specification, released in late August by the OPC Foundation (www.opcfoundation.org), provides a gateway to the Internet for OPC data to be transferred to and from any OPC-enabled device.
The OPC Foundation is a nonprofit organization comprised of manufacturers and solution providers and is dedicated to interoperability in automation.
The OPC XML DA specification enables vendors to add OPC support to any device on the factory floor that is capable of supporting a Web service, said an OPC Foundation press release. This facilitates the OPC data exchange protocol for communicating data and information seamlessly and transparently between devices independent of the operating system and networking technology that the specific device employs.
The OPC XML DA specification is now available complete with sample code for immediate use.
Prior to the OPC XML DA specification, OPC required the use of Microsoft Component Object Model/Distributed Component Object Model (COM/DCOM) to provide data access and exchange services between multiple vendor products. However, DCOM cannot pass through firewalls, so communications over the Internet have previously been impossible.
XML is one of the key enabling technologies for achieving global interconnectivity and it has wide support as a standardized way of handling data among systems using a variety of operating systems. Because it is text-based, XML can pass through firewalls. The OPC XML DA specification defines how XML is used by OPC clients and OPC servers, allowing end-users to deploy systems with commercial off-the-shelf products for interoperability across networks.
Definitions for supporting Web Services are also provided, enabling users to make simple application-to-application connections over the Internet. To assist migration, the OPC Foundation has developed an adaptive wrapper that provides Foundation members with an easy way to deploy Web Services on top of existing OPC Data Access 2.x COM-based servers. This means that an estimated 3,000 OPC Data Access servers worldwide could be readily Web-service enabled.
