Industrial IoT (IIoT) Training Includes:

This course covers the evolution of data connectivity from proprietary data connectivity and custom protocol translation. The course also provides an overview of the OPC Specifications and common use cases for applications that implement them. Participants will gain an understanding of:

• The communication fundamentals related to OPC client and server-based architectures
• The principles of data connectivity to the end devices which are the building blocks of a modern industrial process control system
• The underlying technology behind OPC.

This course is delivered in a series of interactive interspersed sessions with practical exercises to demonstrate and reinforce the concepts presented.

Course Abstract:

Data Connectivity Challenge Overview

• How to share data between multiple device ( Controller) and application vendors and make it available to applications that are used to visualize, analyze, and histories.control automation data.
• How proprietary protocol translators made this data available for specific applications, but came with limitations, especially in the area of interoperability.

First Generation OPC: OPC Classic

Based on the Microsoft Component Object Model (COM) and its distributed COM (DCOM) counterpart, the OPC Classic Specifications defined standardized mechanisms for data representation and sharing using a client/server architecture. This module deals with how OPC utilized the COM/DCOM infrastructure, and the basic functionalities common to all OPC Classic applications. Topics covered include:
• The Microsoft Component Object Model (COM)
• The roles of OPC client and server applications
• The OPC server address space and browsing of The OPC server address space
• Data format, including
• Data Types
• Attributes
• OPC server discovery
• OPC client/server connections

The OPC Classic Specification for Data Access (OPC DA) - PRACTICAL

The original OPC Classic specification. Applications based on the OPC DA specification deal with real-time data sources. PLCs, meters, switches are just a few examples of devices that generate real-time data best shared via OPC DA servers. This module examines the behavior of OPC DA servers and their basic functionality. Topics covered include:
• Use cases for OPC DA servers
• Connecting to a device
• Reading data
• Writing data
• The use and significance of time stamps.

The OPC Classic Specification for Historical Data Access (OPC HDA) - THEORY

Applications that support the OPC HDA specification expose data stored or archived in a database, historian, or another data storage application. This module covers the use cases and specific functionality of these servers. Topics covered include:
• Use cases for OPC HDA servers
• Connections to databases and historian applications
• Raw history reads
• Processed history reads
• History writes

The OPC Classic Specification for Alarms & Events (OPC A&E) - THEORY

Unlike the OPC DA and OPC HDA servers which work with real time and historical data respectively, OPC A&E servers provide a way to share Alarm and Event information in a standardized, vendor independent fashion. This data can come from OPC or non-OPC based sources since an OPC Classic A&E server uses event notifications and alarms triggered by the native, underlying Alarm or Event sources for its input. Topics covered include:
• Use cases for the OPC A&E Servers
• Event configuration
• Event types
• Event notifications
• Subscriptions
• Filters

Security in OPC Classic - THEORY

By today’s standards, at the time the OPC Classic Specifications were developed, cyber security and cyber threats were in their infancy. Although cyber-attacks were not as prevalent as they are today, security did play a factor in the choice of Microsoft technology as the basis for the OPC Classic Specifications. Rather than defining security mechanisms within the OPC Classic Specifications, the security for these applications was based on the Microsoft Windows Operating Systems. This module delves into the early Windows security framework and explores how this affects the operation of the OPC Classic data infrastructure. Topics covered include:
• Windows Security Framework including - Identities, Authentication, Authorization, Access Control Lists
• Windows security updates
• the OPC Security Specification

Data Acquisition - PRACTICAL

The primary OPC Classic specification, called Data Access (DA), focused on data connectivity with real-time data sources to make it accessible to third party systems. Today, the OPC UA specification provides more sophisticated options for accessing different types of data using a variety of connectivity methods. This module examines the applications used in both OPC Classic and OPC UA to access control automation system data. Practical exercises help further demonstrate this functionality. Topics include:
• Data Sources
• Data Destinations
• Data Acquisition in OPC Classic
• Data Acquisition in OPC UA

Data Management - PRACTICAL

Once data is made accessible, a variety of OPC-based applications are used to work with the data. This may involve analyzing the data, storing it, and ensuring that it is distributed and delivered to the applications that need to consume it. This module looks at key applications used to manage OPC data and to ensure that it reaches its destination. Topics include:
• Sharing Real-Time Data
• Sharing Historical Data
• Redundancy

Troubleshooting - PRACTICAL

• This module provides practical approaches and processes to follow when troubleshooting OPC communications, and identifies common factors that may cause complications. Participants are also introduced to the tools used to troubleshoot OPC infrastructure issues and the basics of how to use them.
  Finally, to bring everything together, lock in what was taught, and to build confidence: participants run through a series of virtual lab Break-Fix scenarios where they are need to uncover root causes of various OPC related issues and to fix them.

DIFFERENT TYPES OF OPC’S BASED ON CILENT AND THE SERVER.

The typical OPC connection scenario is a single server-client connection on a single computer as illustrated above, but there are more possibilities. For example, you might need to:

• OPC AGGREGATION:
Connect an OPC client to several OPC servers. This is called OPC aggregation.
Why use the OPC for Aggregation?
• Reduce load on clients by making all of your data available through a single connection.
Accessing data through a single client connection can also save you money if your client application required a license for each server connection.
• Bringing data from multiple sources together into one location allows you to easily bridge between different OPC Servers so that data from one server can be accessed in another server.
• Collect data from all of your OPC, DDE, ODBC, Web and TCP connected applications and present it to the user as a shared common data set.
• Writing custom applications is much easier when you can access data from multiple servers through a common interface, such as that offered by the OPC API. Client program never need to know which program originated the data in order to read and write to it.
• OPC TUNNELLING:
Connect an OPC client to an OPC server over a network. This can be done with OPC tunnelling.
• More features of the OPC tunnelling product.
• SSL(SECURE SOCEKT LAYER) networking provides a secure connection over a network or Internet connection, including optional password protection.
• The tunnelling connection works across firewall boundaries.
• The OPC provides immediate response and automatic recovery from network interruptions and link detection timeouts can be as fast as 50 milliseconds.
Licensing is quick and easy using software key codes. No hardware keys to worry about. Unique to the OPC is the ability to tunnel data between programs on Windows, Linux and QNX operating systems.
• A powerful built-in scripting language lets you fully customize your OPC applications by attaching custom code to process events and point changes.
• Full read and write support for Excel for accurate reporting and real-time Excel analysis of your plant data.
• The OPC also has the ability to aggregate data from multiple OPC Servers into a common data set, giving you a single point of access to all of your plant data.
• Support for the latest web technologies lets you build powerful web applications for process visualization and control.
• Full read and write access to ODBC databases so you can log data to SQL/Access/Oracle, or integrate database information into your OPC applications.
• OPC BRIDGING:
Connect an OPC server to another OPC server to share data. This is known as OPC bridging. Why use the OPC for Bridging?
Using the OPC you can bridge between OPC Servers to integrate data from different systems. The OPC0020also adds the following advanced features:
• Unlike other bridging products, the OPC bridging interface is multi-threaded. This means that when you have bridges configured to multiple OPC servers, then a slow or non-responsive server will not slow down the performance of the bridges connected to the other servers.
• You can connect OPC Servers on the same computer or over a network connection (Bridging and Tunnelling at the same time, as shown in the image above).
• A simple point and click interface makes configuration quick and easy.
Built-in linear transformations allow you to scale, convert or normalize the data as it is bridged from one server to the other.
• The powerful built-in scripting language lets you define even more complex relationships between points in code for even more power and flexibility.
• You have the ability to bridge between multiple OPC Servers, both locally on the same computer and over multiple network connections

The OPC is uniquely designed to do all of these tasks. It is a combination OPC server and OPC client that supports multiple connections. Thus it can connect to several OPC servers simultaneously, for OPC aggregation and OPC bridging. Two OPC can mirror data across a TCP network to provide OPC tunnelling. In addition to enhancing OPC server and client connections, the OPC can connect any OPC server or client to other applications as well, such as Excel, a web browser, or any ODBC database. And it can also be used to get OPC data into Linux or QNX.