Practical Fundamentals of OPC

Contents
1 Overview 1
1.1 What is OPC?
1.2 The Problems addressed by OPC
1.3 The logical object model
1.4 OPC specifications
2 Supporting technologies 13
2.1 Objective oriented Software Technology
2.2 Active X and Active X control
2.3 The client/ server paradigm
2.4 DDE and NetDDE
2.5 OLE
2.6 COM/DCOM
2.7 LANs and WANs
2.8 Protocols and protocols stacks
2.9 Ethernet
2.10 TCP/IP
3 COM/DCOM 23
3.1 Introduction
3.2 Interfaces
3.3 IUknown
3.4 Client/server relationships
3.5 Server object creation and access
3.6 The COM library




4 OPC Overview, Common definitions and interface
specifications 35
4.1 Background
4.2 General Structure of OPC specifications
4.3 OPC overview and |OPC common definitions
4.4 OPC interface Architecture
4.5 Other common interface issues
4.6 Shutdown of servers
4.7 Interface IOPCCommon
4.8 Installation and registration requirements
4.9 OPC server browser
4.10 OPC server browser not available
5 OPC data access specifications 45
5.1 Background
5.2 OPC DA companion specifications
5.3 OPC DA overview
5.4 OPC DA server hierarchy
5.5 Group attributes
5.6 Events and event notifications
5.7 Item properties
5.8 Exchange of information between server and client
6 OPC alarms and events (AE) specification 67
6.1 Background
6.2 DA vs AE
6.3 Specification overview
6.4 Types of server and clients
6.5 Alarm condition
6.6 Events and event notifications
6.7 COM objects defines by OPC AE
6.8 Condition state synchronization and error handling


7 OPC historical data access specification 81
7.1 Background
7.2 The difference between HDA and DA
7.3 Definitions
7.4 Server implementation
7.5 Architecture
7.6 Data exchanges possibilities
7.7 Aggregation
8 OPCB specifications 95
8.1 Overview
8.2 Scope of the specification
8.3 Relationship with IEC 61512-1
8.4 Client-sever interaction
8.5 Architecture
8.6 Data sources and interfaces
8.7 Interfaces and objects
8.8 OPCB namespace
8.9 Browsing the OPCB namespace
8.10 Properties
8.11 Parameters, results and their properties
8.12 Batch List
9 OPC security 129
9.1 Introduction
9.2 Levels of security
9.3 The security reference model
9.4 DCOM security concepts
9.5 OPC security specification
9.6 Time stamp
9.7 Error handling
9.8 Security


10 OPC XML-DA 143
10.1 Background
10.2 XML, SOAP and Web services
10.3 General features
10.4 Security
10.5 Server model
10.6 DX database structure
10.7 OPC DX configuration services
10.8 OPC DX runtime

11 OPC data eXchange 153
11.1 Background
11.2 data integration
11.3 OPC interface architecture
11.4 control and monitoring by attributes
11.5 Server model
11.6 DX database structure
11.7 OPC DX configuration services
11.8 OPC DX runtime
12 Troubleshooting 163
12.1 DCOM network stack
12.2 Physical and data Link Level problems
12.3 Network and transport level problems
12.4 COM/DCOM problems
12.5 Client/server problems
12.6 Other issues








A Appendix: Modbus Protocol 177

B Appendix: DCOM Technical Overview 193

C Appendix: DCOM Installation Issues 225

D Appendix: Practical Exercises 235

E Appendix: TCP/IP 285

F Appendix: Using OPC via DCOM 313

G Appendix: DCOM Configurations for
KEPSenserEX 353