The OPC Foundation Certification Program requires OPC-based products to pass an extensive level of testing to assure compliance, interoperability, robustness, and resource efficiency.
Costs
Certification testing is a paid-for service as described in Overview & Benefits.
Test Coverage
The OPC Foundation ensures that all exposed OPC functionality is tested. This includes all interfaces (e.g. Classic, Server, Client, Publisher, Subscriber). It also includes all OPC UA functionality for which test cases are defined (e.g. Data Access, Alarms & Conditions, Historian as well as companion specifications). Additional details are provided in the certification specifications.
Preparing for Testing
The following items can help a product vendor prepare for Certification Lab testing. It is suggested that vendors prepare for testing and try as many of the tests as possible before attending the OPC Foundation accredit Certification Lab. This ensures that testing does not discover easily avoidable problems. Products with problems take longer to test, which results in additional cost for the vendor.
- The certification specifications are available and explain the process and rules, etc. Download them and review them.
- The OPC Foundation provides compliance test tools. The tools are used by the lab to help with testing.
- The test case documentation describes all of the available tests (actual tests will vary according to the supported Profiles (OPC UA) or interfaces (Classic OPC). For Profiles, the test cases associated with each Conformance Unit that comprises a Profile are included in the Profile Tool . For interfaces (Classic OPC), test-case documentation provides documentation.
- For additional information there are a number of Videos and Podcasts that explain certification.
Once your product successfully passes compliance, interoperability, robustness, usability, and resource efficiency testing then you are ready for certification testing.
Scheduling Testing
- Submit your application for testing by completing the Application Request Form
- A Test Engineer will request your product, configuration, and test results etc.
If you still have questions about the OPC Certification Program, contact the Compliance department.
In-Person vs Online
During the process of commissioning and testing of a product, our testers might come up with questions regarding the operation of the product or features being supported. Answering their questions in a timely manner has critical effects on the total duration of the certification effort. Due to this, we highly recommend having development resources available during and after the scheduled testing timeframe.
The contact between the testers and the vendors personnel can be established in three ways:
- All Online
When choosing this option all contact between the vendor and the testers will take place online. This is achieved using tools for online meetings, file transfer and screen sharing which are available in the Certification Test Lab or tools provided by the vendor. This option is commonly chosen, as it is the most efficient usage of time and resources for the vendor. - In-Person commissioning
In this case the vendor sends a technical contact (usually local support person) for setup and some initial training for the product (usually 1 day). This option is used for more complex products that might require in-depth knowledge to operate or setup. - In-Person visit
Of course the vendor can also join the tester for the full duration of the testing of the product. This can ease and speed up the information exchange, but for most of the time the vendor will only watch the work of the tester and be waiting for questions. Depending on the product and the level of user experience there might only be a few questions or none.
All of these options are available and have been used for multiple years and have been proven to work efficiently. The key point for all options is, that the vendor’s technical resource is available during the testing timeframe for questions and bug fixing, without this the testing duration will be extended.
Test Lab Locations
- Europe: Manfred-Woerner-Str. 125, 73037 Goeppingen, Germany (see here)
- China: P.R.China 397A Guanganmenwai Street, Beijing, China, 100055
