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The Advosol Team
The HDANS Server toolkit is discontinued but still supported.
The DANSrv server toolkit is well suited to quickly implement simple servers or to create high performance OPC servers with ten thousands of items.
The NSPlugin.dll .NET customization assembly interface defines a small number of methods that are called from the generic server and a few callback methods that allow the customization assembly to call methods in the generic server, such as writing new item values into the cache.A license of the uaPLUS server toolkit is required in addition to the DANSrv license.
Standard Edition
All basic features for OPC V2/V3 servers with a static item address space.
Professional Edition
Additional features increase the functionality and the performance.
Both editions support 32-bit and 64-bit operation. A version of the generic server is provided for each platform. The server customization .Net plug-in assembly built for ANY CPU works on both platforms.
The OPC DA .NET Server Features include:
Additional Features of the Professional Edition Include:
OPC Alarms & Event Option:
The OPC AE .NET Server Toolkit can be combined with this OPC DA .NET Server toolkit to make the server compliant with OPC DA2, OPC DA3 and OPC AE1.1.
OPC AE event sources can be DA server items or any other signal source.
Sample Servers
The following sample server customizations are provided as Visual Studio solutions with VB and C# source code:
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This is a simple server with a few items, statically defined within the code. |
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This sample works as the 'Simple' sample and additionally defines and handles custom item properties. With project for .NET7 and generic .NET7 main application code. With the generic DANSrv server with UA combination capability. Configuration files for DCOM registration and UA communication. Requires DLLs from the uaPLUS Toolkit for operation. With project for .NET7 and generic .NET7 main application code. Configuration files for DCOM registration and UA communication. Works with the generic DANSrv server with UA combination capability. Requires DLLs from the uaPLUS Toolkit for operation. |
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This sample is very similar to the 'Properties' sample but implements a dynamic item address space. At startup no items are defined in the generic server. All items are added dynamically when they are first accessed by a client. The browse mode is set to virtual and the client browse calls are handled in this sample. The return the items that could be added to the server cache. For the client this handling is invisible. It appears identical to the 'Properties' sample. Only in the DANSrv Professional Edition because the Standard Edition does not support virtual browsing. |
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This sample loads the item configuration from the file CfgSample.xml and creates the defined items at startup. The XML file can be modified with the ConfigBuilder application. The new configuration used when the server is restarted. No compilation is required. The sample does embed the XML file to show this possibility. To use the embedded file the sample has to be modified to use the LoadEmbedded() method in place of LoadFromExeDir(). The method call is in the code as comment. Only in the DANSrv Professional Edition because the Standard Edition does not support the ConfigBuilder. |
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This sample defines 20000 items at startup and updates the first 1000 items every 100ms. It should give an impression of the performance and can be used as the base for a custom benchmark application. |
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This sample uses a TCP socket on port 6500 for device communication. For tests a Device simulator console application is provided. |
Tools
The OPCDA.NET server toolkit provides tools for quick and simple server development and testing:
System Requirements:
The XML-DA Client to OPC-DA Server Gateway (XDAGW-SS) enables XML DA client applications to access OPC DA servers.
The XDAGW-SS Gateway offers a way to allow existing XML DA client applications access to the wide base of installed OPC DA servers.
The gateway is provided in version for IIS web services and one for WCF.
WCF offers more communications options but is useful only when both sides, client and server, are WCF based.
XDAGW-SS is compliance tested for XML-DA V1.0.1 and OPC-DA V2.05 and 3.0. If connected to an OPC-DA V3 server the OPC DA V3 features such as WriteVQT() are used, otherwise the server is accessed OPC-DA V2.05 compliant.
Configuration and Diagnostic Utility
The XDAGW-SS gateway configuration settings are defined in the AppSettings section of the web.config file.
The configuration utility displays the settings and changes can be made interactively instead of modifying the web.config file with a text editor.
The diagnostic features test the access to the OPC DA server and the XML DA gateway web service.
The .NET3 configuration is also in the web.config file and is modified with the WCF configuration utility.
Security
Web services don't provide a high level of security. Using HTTPS is the only option.
The gateway implements effective security measures. It can be configured to restrict the server access to an item subset. E.g. make some items read-only or allow only a subset of the items to be accessed.
The XDAGW-SS gateway is provided in a version for WCF that can be configured for secure communication.
In communication with WCF based XML DA servers, any WCF communication bindings can be used, including X.509 certificates
System Requirements
Web Services are a high-level application-to-application communication technology embraced by virtually all platform providers including Microsoft, IBM, Sun, and Linux.
XML (eXtensible Markup Language) is one of the key enabling technologies for achieving global inter-connectivity and it has industry-wide support as a standardized way of handling data among systems using a variety of operating systems. On a higher layer the SOAP specification defines remote procedure call messages in a platform independent fashion, using XML. Web services such as XML DA or UA base on SOAP and are defined in WSDL documents.
XML DA
In October 1999 the OPC Foundation announced that it will publish XML schema based
on OPC specifications that define application interoperability and
communications between disparate industrial automation devices, systems
and applications running across the manufacturing enterprise.
In July 2003 the first version of the XML DA specification was released.
XML DA specifies a rather simple web service
with eight methods that handle all of the features typically used in the
OPC Data Access applications.
The XML DA specification didn't get the attention it deserves, mainly because the OPC Foundation announced the United Architecture specification shortly after the release of XML DA and allocated its resources on this new specification. Another reason is performance concerns. Due to the XML based communication XML DA is much slower than the COM based OPC DA. This caused users to decide for proprietary tunnel solutions instead of XML DA. However, it needs to be noted that XML DA is actually fast enough for many OPC data access applications.
XML DA Characteristics
WCF (Windows Communication Foundation)
introduced in .NET3 eliminates many of the web services short comings. The communication
can now be configured for either high performance and/or security.
The XML DA specification defines SOAP messages for requests and responses. With .NET2 the communication is restricted the HTTP transport. With .NET3 (WCF) the communication can be configured in a wide range to include TCP and Pipe transports and many security options. The WCF basicHttp binding is compatible with .NET2.
Advosol OPC XML DA Products
Advosol offers software development tools for XML-DA clients, XML-DA Servers and Gateways (converters). The products are provided in two version, for IIS web services and for WCF.
The OPC-DA Client to XML-DA Server Gateway (XDAGW-CS) enables OPC DA client applications to access XML -DA servers.
The XML-DA Gateway offers a way to allow existing OPC DA client applications access to remote servers and to upgrade step-by-step to web services technology.
The gateway is provided in version for IIS web services and one for WCF.
WCF offers more communications options but is useful only when both sides, client and server, are WCF based.
XDAGW-CS is an OPC DA V2/V3 compliant server with a built-in XML-DA V1.01 compliant client.
It enables OPC DA clients to access devices with XML-DA servers.
The gateway creates XML-DA subscriptions for all items referenced by a client and updates its data cache periodically. The clients can read data quickly out of the cache.
Why use OPC XML-DA?
The main reason for using the gateway is to enable OPC DA clients to access remote servers.
OPC XML-DA provides the foundation for multi-platform interoperability because it is based on Web Services communication instead of the Windows specific DCOM. It simplifies sharing and exchange of data among the various levels of the plant hierarchy (low level devices and up to enterprise systems), and to a wider range of platforms.
XML DA is a rather simple specification that is easy to implement on all web services platforms. The functionality is restricted to functionality defined in the OPC DA specification.
If access to Historical and Alarms&Events servers is required the COMtoUA Converter has to be used instead.
Security
Web services don't provide a high level of security. Using HTTPS is the only option.
The gateway implements effective security measures. It can be configured to restrict the server access to an item subset. E.g. make some items read-only or allow only a subset of the items to be accessed.
The XDAGW-SS gateway is provided in a version for .NET3 that can be configured for secure communication.
In communication with a .NET3 based XML DA server, any WCF communication bindings can be used, including X.509 certificates
System Requirements
The HDANSrv Toolkit is discontinued but still supported for customers with a subscription.
The provided sample servers are tested with the OPC Foundation Compliance Test Tool for full OPC HDA 1.0 / 1.1 / 1.2 compliance.
Complete source code is available and the code is well structured and extensively documented. The custom server development can be as simple as adapting one database access method.
To achieve top performance it may be necessary to adapt the provided Base Customization .NET plug-in assembly implementation.
Standard Edition Server Toolkit Features
Professional Edition Server Toolkit Features
System Requirements
Server Development
The generic server converts all client call parameters to .Net types and calls the appropriate method in the customization plug-in. All application specific server handling can be implemented in C# or VB.Net, using only .Net data types.
The provided sample servers are used as the starting point for custom server development projects. Depending on the application requirements the server development can be as simple as adapting the database read methods.
OPC Standard Compliance
The provided sample server implementation is tested with the OPC Foundation Compliance Test Tool for compliance with the OPC HDA V1.0/1.1/1.2 specifications.
Test Client
All OPC HDA defined functions can be called interactively.
This test client is a .Net application, built with the OPCHDA.NET Client Component, which is available as a separate product.