Microsoft partners with Hewlett Packard Enterprise (HPE), Honeywell, Mitsubishi, Rockwell, Siemens, Schneider, Beckhoff, Harting and Leuze showing the Microsoft “Connected Factory”
Scottsdale, Oct 03, 2017 – The OPC Foundation has delivered the first 30 of 40 “Azure IoT Suite Connected Factory” demonstration walls that will be prominently displayed internationally at the Microsoft Technology Centers. These walls show the power of the Microsoft commitment to embrace the OPC UA interoperability standard as the secure solution for seamless integration of OT and IT.
These interactive walls demonstrate vendor devices from different verticals showing a bidirectional connection to Azure:
- Device-to-Cloud (D2C): Devices push telemetry data to the Azure IoT platform
- Cloud-to-Device (C2D): Allows secure browsing of the rich OPC UA information model from the Azure IoT platform and optional “Command and Control” machines
Microsoft first demonstrated OPC UA integration into Azure IoT Suite at Hanover fair in April 2016. Over 30 companies participated by providing OPC UA enabled devices for an integrated Connected Factory demonstration. This Hanover demonstration was later turned into a decision by Microsoft and the OPC Foundation to actively promote the Connected Factory demonstration by developing freestanding OPC UA demonstration walls. The Connected Factory demonstrates the power of OPC UA technology as the solution for Industrial IoT, Industrie 4.0, Made in China 2025, Korea Manufacturing and other initiatives.
Jason Zander, Corp. Vice President Microsoft Azure said during the opening ceremony of the Microsoft Innovation Center in Taiwan: “We see OPC UA as a critical standard for ensuring interoperability between manufacturing processes and equipment, spanning decades of investment for many companies. We have been working with the OPC Foundation on building up 40 OPC UA devices walls which are currently being distributed to the Microsoft Executive Briefing Center in Redmond, worldwide Microsoft Technology Centers, the IoT Labs in Redmond, Germany and China and the newly established IoT Innovation Center in Taiwan, to demonstrate the strong ecosystem with connected OPC UA devices and the Connected Factory preconfigured solution running on the Azure IoT platform.”
“Microsoft is truly committed to the OPC Foundation vision of complete interoperability from the embedded world to the cloud. The Azure IoT Suite Connected Factory walls are an outstanding international demonstration of Microsoft and major automation vendors to provide OPC UA enabled solutions that truly meet and exceed the expectations of the end-user community,” says OPC Foundation Vice President Stefan Hoppe.
About OPC Foundation
Since 1996, the OPC Foundation has facilitated the development and adoption of the OPC information exchange standards. As both advocate and custodian of these specifications, the Foundation’s mission is to help industry vendors, end-users, and software developers maintain interoperability in their manufacturing and automation assets.
The OPC Foundation provides the best specifications, technology, process and certification to achieve multivendor, multiplatform, secure, reliable interoperability for moving data and information from the embedded world to the enterprise cloud. The organization serves over 470 members worldwide in the Industrial Automation, IT, IoT, IIoT, M2M, Industrie 4.0, Building Automation, machine tools, pharmaceutical, petrochemical, and smart energy sectors.
About OPC UA
OPC Unified Architecture (OPC UA) is a platform and vendor independent communication technology for a secure and reliable data exchange over the different levels of the automation pyramid. In addition, the information models of the OPC UA standard provide the foundation for semantic interoperability.
For more information, please visit: www.opcfoundation.org
Media Contacts:
Stefan Hoppe
OPC Foundation Global Vice President
Stefan.Hoppe@opcfoundation.org
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Pic1:
The demo wall
Pic2: left to right:
Erich Barnstedt Principal Software Engineer, Azure IoT, Microsoft Corporation
Jason Zanders, Microsoft Corp. Vice President Azure
Stefan Hoppe, Vice President OPC Foundation
Pic3:
Jason Zanders, Microsoft Corp. Vice President Azure
Pic4:
Jason Zanders, Microsoft Corp. Vice President Azure
