Understanding OPC UA (2 Days)

Summary

Training summary This training course aims to provide an in-depth understanding of the Open Platform Communications Unified Architecture (OPC UA) standard.

It explores the OPC UA ecosystem, its origins, foundation, state of the art, and evolution. It highlights the central role of OPC UA as an open standard and essential technology for industrial interoperability, security, and machine-to-machine (M2M) communication in the Industrial Internet of Things (IIoT) and Industry 4.0.

Participants will learn the fundamental concepts that differentiate OPC UA from its predecessor (OPC Classic), including its platform independence and object-oriented information model.

A comprehensive overview, accompanied by initial practical implementation, is provided.

This 2-day technical training module focuses on a deep dive into the OPC UA standard, its concepts, implementation, and practical application in industrial environments.

Objectives

  • Understand the OPC UA ecosystem (protocol, security, commands, models, address space, client-server architectures, role of the OPC Foundation, companion specifications).
  • Implement OPC UA client-server services .
  • Explain semantic modeling in OPC UA.
  • Explain the interface towards the Industrial IoT (IIoT).
  • Develop an understanding of the OPC UA standard, including its concepts, features, and benefits in the context of industrial automation.
  • Evaluate the OPC UA ecosystem, including choosing protocols, security, and data encoding.
  • Exploit OPC UA semantic modeling.
  • Explain the interface towards the IIoT .

Target Audience

This training is aimed at:

  • Industrial automation project managers or leaders
  • Automation engineers
  • IT engineers
  • Consultants
  • Managers
  • Security engineers
  • Developers
  • Engineers, automation specialists, and programmers involved in implementing industrial systems.

Program Content

Day 1: OPC UA Fundamentals and Exploration

  • General overview of OPC UA, its foundations, and its two pillars.
  • Client/Server architecture, communication, and secure channels.
  • Essential OPC UA commands: Read, Write, Browse, and Subscriptions.
  • Information structuring: object-oriented approach and semantic modeling.
  • Key concepts: DataValue, NodeId, Namespace, Variant, References
  • Exploration of the OPC UA address space and its attributes.
  • Practical Work: Navigating and discovering an OPC UA tree.

Day 2: Advanced Services, Security, and Practical Implementation

  • Detailed Subscriptions (MonitoredItems), Method calls, Alarms & Events.
  • Data historization and extraction of calculated values (Aggregates).
  • Publish/Subscribe (PubSub) model for D2D and MQTT communications.
  • In-depth security: certificate management and Global Discovery Server.
  • Companion specifications (DI, ADI, UAFx) and future evolutions of the standard.
  • Practical Work: Creating a simple server with NodeOPCUA and a JavaScript client.
  • Illustration of use cases with NodeOPCUA, transferable to other OPC UA environments.

Sterfive SAS is registered as a training provider under number 24450373245. In accordance with regulations, this registration does not constitute state approval.