Creating an OPC UA Connection

This section will guide you through setting up an Open Platform Communications Unified Architecture (OPC UA) connection between your OPC UA Server and your FrameWorX Server. For more details on OPC and OPC UA protocols, please, look at the OPC Introduction and What is an OPC Server URL and how to get it.

Prerequisites

To establish a connection between GENESIS and an OPC UA Server, you need the following software installed:

  • GENESIS
  • OPC UA Server

For GENESIS, you need to have the Windows service ICONICS OPC UA Point Manager running and the Workbench provider OPC UA configured on SQL Server, for more architectural details, please, look at the Workbench Internal Architecture.

For OPC UA Server, you need to have a running OPC UA Server with an open network port if the server does not run on the same machine with a certificate (not mandatory but recommended to avoid Man In The Middle Attacks (MITM)).

In this example we are using Takebishi Device Explorer v7.3.2.1.

  1. Install Takebishi Device Explorer v7.3.2.1.

  2. Start it.

  3. Navigate to Project Explorer > Project > IoT Interface > OPC UA Server > OPC UA Server.

  4. Right-click OPC UA Server and select Property.

Device Explorer - Enable OPC UA Server

  1. Select the Enable OPC UA Server checkbox.

  2. Select the Enable Anonymous checkbox.

  3. Select the None checkbox.

  4. Select Apply to apply the changes.

Device Explorer - OPC UA Server Properties

Steps to create an OPC UA connection

  1. Open Workbench and expand My Project > Data Connectivity > OPC UA provider.

  2. Navigate to OPC UA Connections.

Workbench - Expand Connections

  1. Double click OPC UA Connections to open the OPC UA Connections dialog.

Workbench - Tab OPC UA Connections

  1. Select Click here to add new item in the Connections section to add a new connection.

Workbench - Adding a Connection

  1. Enter a name for your connection in the Name box.

  2. Set Server URL in Connection Settings to opc.tcp://localhost:52250/ which represents the local instance of Takebishi Device Explorer listening on port 52250.

  3. Select the Refresh button next to Preferred Endpoint to set the OPC UA endpoint you want to use (a number of endpoints will be displayed depending on the OPC UA server configuration).

OPC UA - Preferred Endpoint

  1. Selecct Test Connection button, to test the connection.

OPC UA - Successful Test Connection

  1. Select Apply button, to apply the changes.

  2. Expand the Data Browser to navigate to Data Connectivity > OPC UA > My OPC UA Connection.

OPC UA - Connection Working on Data Browser