Is OPC UA the Future of IIoT?

Why don't we talk about #OPCUA when we talk about #IIoT?

We get this question often!

Find out in this #whiteboardwednesday video with Walker Reynolds!

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#IIoT #Industry40 #DigitalTransformation

[jtsflyingadventure]

It is extremely refreshing to find a video with GOOD video AND audio-quality on the topic of industrial automation. Well done sir, you have a new subscriber. Keep it up!

[MichaelSmith-fgxh]

When PTC do IIoT, we (I’m an IIoT architect for PTC) have ThingWorx in the big black box on your diagram and don’t use OPC-UA between Kepware and ThingWorx. When we’re using Kepware for gathering data for other people’s modern, non-scada, IIoT platforms we typically either use message queues for Kepware to push data to them or they have some version of field agent to transport our data to their server.

[matthewparris]

Another consideration: MQTT is very lightweight and publishes values whether anyone in the business uses them or not, at the rate that the server (source) wants. OPC-UA has more overhead and all conceivable data is made browsable, but only the data that is actually needed (subscribed) is sent over the network. In some cases, it may be easier to modify the client to subscribe to additional data rather than modify the server (source) to publish additional data. MQTT is great in that new devices easily appear in its namespace. There are OPC-UA products being developed to catch up to MQTT's functionality: aggregating multiple servers into one namespace to act like a broker. This is separate from the Part14 addition, which is planned for Time Sensitive Networks, such as PLC loop control, among other applications.

[omairtariq]

Data reliability is a big issue with MQTT. It is really difficult to troubleshoot MQTT messages if you don't have any historical data.

[NikolaR]

To play devils advocate, but transaction of opening a bank account and it showing up in your banking software actually (in many cases) means that someone will first create it, and then add it for you, or link it to your software account.
Reason they would do this is (I assume) due to security procedures. It is not safe default to show new bank account in banking software. Which leads me to my question: how do you handle security when nodes need to "show up" automatically? Is there authentication? What do you do when authentication keys / certs needs to be updated / maintained?


Great videos! Keep them coming :)

[bteck]

OPC foundation has been disguising its stadards as "Open". You said it right to the point. It is far from open. Its stadards are members ONLY, and are closed to the non-paying communities!
The OPC standard is indeed heavy on resource consumption. Hence, its performance in terms of data exchange rate is always poor.

[abdi]

There are some issues needed to discuss. Please consider that if we want here challenge on some middle ware like ignition, Iconics, for unified SCADA infrastructure or emerge using OPC UA as infrastructure for unified architecture. Your deduction were amazing and new to me but I think why many Automation pioneers like OPC foundation speak easily about OPC UA. Siemens invest on OPC UA over TSN recently. it means if Siemens considers Mindsphere as IIoT infrastructure it can speak about OPC UA over TSN as unified architecture. You are totally right about MES, ERP, WSM that are not embedded with OPC UA, and there is MW needed but please explain more on it. Classify exactly where we have OPC UA as our unified architecture and where it is difficult to speak. This is age of OPC UA TSN, PI International speak about Profinet over TSN, Ethercat believes Ethercat is more better than both, Now who is the real winner in the field. I am member of Digital Transformation group for steel factory and want to decide. Where I can write for you directly to discuss?

[karlgifford]

Thank you VERY MUCH for making this video, we have been fighting with opc.ua as a small company and found it to be very expensive and complicated
your video shows the flow of digital exchange and control in a beautiful way.

[samoilija]

What do you mean by OPC is not report by exception? I think OPC UA supports report by exception, meaning only changes can be reported from OPC UA server to the OPC client that has susbcribed the data. Surely the proprietary communication below the OPC server e.g. Modbus can then be based on polling or with some intelligent protocol like DNP that can also be report by exception.

[AndrewSario]

Great job, I thought your answer in the end is precisely the right answer

[allenng]

Quick question: why don't you have kepserver or whatever software you use as an OPC Server push data into an SQL sever and have the MES/ERP/WMS take the data out from SQL. Since these system does not have to be real time, SQL would be able to give them high volume time-stamp data. Interesting video. Appreciate how you visualize iiot in a user friendly manner.

[IAMGregEVA]

Great video! I'm curious about what sort of standard data model that you would typically use. Here you've compared OPC UA and MQTT, however MQTT is a transport layer protocol and OPC UA is application layer including information/data model which provides the interoperability piece.

[CraigHollabaugh]

Nice intro for me. Once you said MQTT, I knew where you were going. Thanks.

[shengzhihe]

Thanks for the great videos. I enjoy every one of them. I have a question from this post: Why wouldn't AVEVA system platform work as the UNS? What's its weakness comparing to igntion\nccoa\fs?

[darbariabhinav]

One question please. How do you bring pre internet era equipment connected to IIOT . For ex for large utlities companies some of the plants are 20-30 years legacy, some may not have PLC hooked, so what is the first step to bring them in IIOT network ?

[danielduchon]

What do you think of Crosser IoT Edge?

[trrk]

Can't Ignition talk OPC-UA so Kepware is redundant in this example? Is it because you need MQTT to have update by exception?

[abuimran]

How security between 2 hardwares example for opc to mes and opc to plc? Firewall for example will it works once activate it? Tq

[GreyDziuba]

Great explanation. Is analytics a part of your business or do you just set it up to be used most efficiently?

[arastarhan]

As far as I know, membership is not required for the use of OPC-UA technology or the creation of OPC-UA products. Am I missing something?