OPC Foundation

The OPC Foundation (Open Platform Communications, formerly Object Linking and Embedding for Process Control) is an industry consortium that creates and maintains standards for open connectivity of industrial automation devices and systems, such as industrial control systems and process control generally. The OPC standards specify the communication of industrial process data, alarms and events, historical data and batch process data between sensors, instruments, controllers, software systems, and notification devices.

The OPC Foundation started in 1994, and released the co-called OPC Classic standard in August 1996. OPC Classic specifications are based on Microsoft Windows technology using the COM/DCOM (Distributed Component Object Model) for the exchange of data between software components.

Since 2004, the OPC Foundation develops OPC UA, a cross-platform, open-source, IEC62541 standard for data exchange from sensors to cloud applications. The UA in OPC UA stands for “Unified Architecture”. It is platform independent and ensures the seamless flow of information among devices from multiple vendors.