Archive - 2006

(updates also available via  RSS feed)

2006-Dec-19 Advosol adds 64-bit support
OPC .NET development: Advosol's DA .NET client and server components now include both 32- and 64-bit editions. No special customization is required to support 64-bit mode.
2006-Dec-19 OPC Interoperability Workshop 2007 - North America
OPC Foundation has announced that the 2007 North America Interoperability Workshop will be held the week of May 7 near Fort Lauderdale, Florida. This event will mark the introduction of the certification process for OPC client applications, as well as testing of the OPC Unified Architecture Wrapper. Registration will be available from January.
2006-Dec-19 uForte OPC Server supports DA, AE, HDA
Toolkits: our comprehensive rundown now includes the uForte OPC Server, offering DA (up to version 3), AE and HDA support within a single unit.
2006-Dec-13 OPC Foundation publishes DA client analyis tool
OPC Foundation has released the OPC Analyzer utility as a download for corporate members. OPC Analyzer is used at interoperability workshops for monitoring the behavior of OPC DA clients. More details are available here.
2006-Dec-09 OPC UA Finite State Machine documentation
OPC Foundation has issued an appendix to the Unified Architecture specification describing the infrastrucure for modelling finite state machines within UA. Currently at Release Candidate level, this document is an appendix to part 5 of the UA specification, which describes the all-important Information Model. The new document is available only to corporate members of OPC Foundation.
2006-Dec-09 UtgardProject - pure Java OPC library
UtgardProject is an open source project offering an OPC library written in pure native Java, i.e. with no dependency on JNI or other DLLs. See our Java page for more information.
2006-Nov-22 OPC Foundation 2006 General Assembly Meeting
OPC Foundation will conduct its General Assembly Meeting as a webinar on December 6, 2006. The meeting will include announcement of the results of the current Board of Directors' election and an update of OPC Foundation business. Registration is now open (Foundation members only).
2006-Nov-19 OPC UA Specification Part 10, Programs, updated to RC1.00
OPC Foundation has upissued Part 10 of the OPC Unified Architecture specification to Release Candidate level. This document, formerly known as Commands, is available only to corporate members of OPC Foundation.
2006-Nov-13 PyOPC - Python framework for XML-DA development
XML-DA: PyOPC is a new Open Source framework for rapidly creating XML-DA clients and servers using the Python language.
2006-Nov-08 OPC Foundation newsletter outlines OPC-UA security model
The tenth edition of OPC Foundation's "OPConnect" newsletter has been distributed as an e-mail bulletin, and made available as a web page. The headline article is a useful summary of OPC-UA's built-in security model. Previous editions of the newsletter remain available.
2006-Nov-06 Google Code Search
Google's Code Search facility offers a new and useful way of finding code snippets. There are a few OPC-related samples to be had. See, for example, search results for IOPCServer. Our Free Source listing gives additional links for OPC source code.
2006-Nov-05 OPC Test Lab - Release Candidate specs issued for DA client and server tests
As part of the drive to improve OPC product quality, OPC Foundation is publishing Release Candidate specifications for a new OPC Test Lab. This comprehensive set of documents covers the proposed model of testing and certification for both OPC-UA and legacy OPC (COM) products. The procedure covers Compliance Tests, Interoperability Workshops, and Independent Test Laboratories. New parts 6 and 7 address COM DA server and client tests respectively.
2006-Nov-05 OPC Foundation updates HDA part of UA specification
Part 11 of the OPC Unified Architecture specification, covering Historical Access, has been upissued by OPC Foundation to Release Candidate level. This document is available only to corporate members of OPC Foundation. Full release of this part, along with part 9 (Alarms and Conditions) and part 10 (Programs) is due by the end of November.
2006-Nov-05 Major updates to JEasyOPC - Open Source OPC client for Java
Antonín Fischer's Java OPC Client is now greatly enhanced (with support for DA 3.0 and 2.0) and hosted on SourceForge. See our Java page for more OPC Java solutions.
2006-Oct-29 Automation.com has Jim Pinto on OPC
Automation.com has a useful OPC overview article by Jim Pinto: "OPC - the standard that makes other standards interoperable" (via Eric Murphy's OPC Exchange). Nothing new here for the OPC expert, but useful advocacy if you're looking to 'sell' OPC to others.
2006-Oct-18 OPC Foundation publishes Schema and WSDL for UA
Following on from last week's successful UA DevCon, OPC Foundation has published beta versions of the schema and WSDL documents for OPC-UA. These provide the formal definition of the contract between a UA client and server, and supplement the Mappings part (part 6) of the UA specification. This new download is available only to OPC Foundation members. A highlight of the UA DevCon was demonstration of UA code running on multiple platforms, include Windows and Linux PCs and a PLC.
2006-Oct-09 Advosol supports secure access to XML-DA
XML-DA: Advosol has updated its client-side and server-side XML-DA Gateways and the XMLDA.NET Client Component with security support based on Microsoft WSE 3.0. Advosol says this allows remote XML-DA and (COM) DA servers to be accessed using the same type of security as will be provided in OPC-UA.
2006-Sep-30 OPC-UA Data Access Spec released
The all-important Data Access section (part 8) of the OPC-UA specification has been formally released - just in time for the upcoming UA DevCon. Along with other OPC specifications, this document is - regrettably - available to OPC Foundation members only.
2006-Sep-28 Compliance Tests Updated
OPC Foundation has updated all modules of its Compliance Test suite. Changes include new test cases, bug fixes, and usability enhancements. The Compliance Tests are available only to Corporate Members of OPC Foundation.