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Newbie and would require help

Vinay Salian

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06/18/2021 - 05:01

Hello everyone

I am newbie to this group and would require some insight from experts. We have a Dot net C# SCADA web application which uses Modbus drivers and Siemens drivers from 3rd party for communicating with multiple field devices like PLCs at the same time. The application runs on IIS and uses SQL Server for Data storage and application fields etc.

Now we want other Enterprise applications like MES and Historian to collect and post data and commands from our application .

There are two data types which need to be transfeered one is real time data from field devices ( PLCs ). and data which is stored in the SQL like login /logout details. audit log , Batch start and stop etc.

We thought the approach of building APis for the current logs and process and serving data to MES and Historian in json format etc. would be the right one .

But someone proposed that the MES and historian may not support json format but would rather user industrial protocols like OPC , Modbus etc and we need to send data in the industrial protocol.

So is building an OPC server for our application the right approach?

Do we need to build OPC client in our application to connect to OPC enabled PLcs like siemens 1200 through tags

Would Building an OPC server will need writing every driver from scratch. or we require to buy third party drivers for every brand of PLC.?.

Can OPc server serve data from PLC as welll as from database as well ?

kindly suggest.

Thanks in advance ;

Vinay

Randy Armstrong

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06/18/2021 - 15:38

If you need to connect to existing industrial applications you need to implement OPC.

There is a huge library of OPC servers that connect to different industrial devices so you only need to implement an OPC client to access all of this information. In many cases, the OPC servers are supplied by the makers of the devices, however, there are also 3rd party products that can be used.

The question of whether you need a server a client or both would require a more detailed discussion of your requirements.

Paul Hunkar

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06/20/2021 - 22:40

As Randy said to really know if you need a server or just a client depend on a more detailed analysis of your application. If you are generating data locally in your Application then you would most probably need a server to expose that data, some of what you described (audit logs security data – login/logout) are all covered by existing OPC UA models that you could implement in an OPC UA Server.

Most PLC currently are or can be OPC UA Servers, so all you would need is an OPC UA client and your application can collect data from may different vendors PLC’s. If you would want to then expose this data as part of your own OPC UA Server – this can be done, it is more commonly called an aggregating server (you are aggregating information from underlining devices and sourcing it to higher level applications). Again how you would want to do this could be discussed further (are you enhancing the data from the underlining PLC’s or just echoing it up to to higher level applications?

Paul Hunkar - DSInteroperability

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