Application Note
Introduction
This document contains some basis on the Open Process Control (OPC) application and a brief procedure on how to set up the internal OPC UA server in SKF @ptitude Observer. This document covers:
• OPC basis • OPC tools
– OPC simulator – OPC UA viewers
• Connecting to SKF @ptitude Observer internal OPC UA server • External OPC server
– OPC server set up – OPC channel set up – Measurement point set up
• Exposing OPC UA to traditional OPC clients • Network considerations
OPC basis
OPC stands for Open Process Control (previously object linking and embedding (OLE) for process control) and it is an open, flexible and plug-and-play software communication standard designed to exchange real time automation data (interoperability in the automation industry) between PC-based clients using Microsoft operating systems. OPC is a specification that has been developed by a team of more than 120 companies to produce an interface that makes possible the interoperability between automation/control applications, field systems/devices and business/office applications. Currently, the OPC Foundation is in charge of the OPC standard. The OPC Foundation is dedicated to ensure the interoperability by creating and maintaining open specifications that standardize the communication of acquired process data, alarm and event records, historical data and batch data to multi-vendor enterprise systems and between production devices like sensors, instruments, PLCs, RTUs, DCSs, HMIs, trending subsystems, alarm subsystems and more as used in the process industry, manufacturing and in acquiring and transporting oil/gas and minerals. OPC Foundation: www.opcfoundation.org.
OPC enables software, such as SKF @ptitude Observer, to route its data to the OPC server. In return, the OPC server stores and shares data from all the OPC clients. Generally, there are two different generations of OPC, OPC (which is generally referred to as Standard OPC or OPC DA) and OPC UA (Unified Architecture) which was introduced as the unification of the existing OPC standards, with a secure and reliable cross platform framework for access to real time and historical data and events.
There are two ways of working with OPC in conjunction with SKF @ptitude Observer:
Publishing data by using the Internal Built-in OPC Server: In SKF @ptitude Observer, there is a built-in OPC UA server in the monitor
service component. If enabled, it automatically publishes all data that the SKF @ptitude Observer system captures.
Reading data from External OPC Servers: To be able to use external OPC servers in SKF @ptitude Observer, you will need to set up a
configuration for the available OPC servers. This allows the SKF @ptitude Observer Monitor service to recognize these OPC servers. The SKF @ptitude Observer Monitor application will handle MasCon / SKF Multilog IMx On-line Systems and act as the logical data gatherer/ distributor for OPC. Therefore, it is not needed to have SKF @ptitude Observer display application running in order to use OPC in your application. However, you do need to set up OPC servers and OPC channels in SKF @ptitude Observer while the SKF @ptitude Observer Monitor is connected to SKF @ptitude Observer.
Since OPC UA is backwards compatible with OPC DA, this is the preferred solution. OPC UA is the most flexible solution and provides very good future development opportunities. It is broadly supported by the industry and allows for the reading/sharing of data arrays so FFT and time wave data may be supported. SKF @ptitude Observer also supports array data with OPC UA.
SKF @ptitude Observer also has support for OPC-UA and further development on this is easier, as it does not involve firmware nor hardware development.
To get yourself acquainted with OPC UA, you should try and play with it. You can do this on your own computer.
OPC tools
OPC simulator
(Not OPC UA, but also works with SKF @ptitude Observer because SKF @ptitude Observer supports both OPC DA and OPC UA.) • Iconics OPC simulator (comes preconfigured for showing random values, sine waves, etc.; is free to download after registration) • Matrikon (a bit complex to setup; is free after registration)
• Graybox OPC simulator: http://www.gray-box.net/download_graysim.php
• Netlistener: http://www.somebytes.de/downloads/opcnetlistener.zip (converts your CPY load, for example, into an OPC tag channel that you can measure with SKF @ptitude Observer via OPC)
OPC UA viewers
(Will allow you to view/browse the tag/measurements on OPC UA clients and on some OPC clients also. Will also allow you to browse the SKF @ptitude Observer channels configured for OPC UA output.)
• CAS OPC UA viewer
Connecting to SKF @ptitude Observer’s internal OPC UA server
In this section it is shown how to connect to the built-in OPC UA server of SKF @ptitude Observer. The built-in OPC UA server automatically exposes some measurements to OPC UA clients.
First, enable the internal OPC UA server of SKF @ptitude Observer. 1. Go to On-line > OPC Servers > Internal OPC Server († fig. 1).
Fig. 1. Internal OPC Server configuration menu.
Fig. 2. Internal OPC Server configuration window.
2. Select what data you would like to publish and enable the Internal OPC UA Server († fig. 2).
3. Change the port of the OPC server if needed. (Consult the IT or the process control department. For a local test between SKF @ptitude Observer and your own locally installed OPC viewer, you do not need to change ports, as both applications will install with the same default port setting.) The default port is 62550.
Fig. 3. Internal OPC Server status.
4. After enabling the internal OPC UA server, you should use the Monitor Service Viewer and check if the internal OPC UA server is up and running under “Status”. If it is, it will be listed at its full address in the Monitor Service Viewer († fig. 3).
If you cannot see the internal OPC UA server running here, then you might need to restart the Monitor Service (under certain Operating Systems).
5. The paths listed here can be copied and pasted for viewers and clients to find the SKF @ptitude Observer OPC UA server. You can see two major paths, one on tcp and one on http. Http will only work if your computer is running an IIS server (or your computer can be browsed with Internet Explorer). Use for initial testing the tcp paths.
6. Using the Iconics OPC UA viewers, you can browse and find the SKF @ptitude Observer OPC UA server as follows († fig. 4):
Fig. 4. OPC Server UA Viewer Server Configuration.
7. After pasting the address path that you want to browse with the viewer, click on Connect. The viewer will now show all the available tags on SKF @ptitude Observer. If you are trying to browse on a network for a remote SKF @ptitude Observer internal OPC server (in other words, Monitor Service is not running on the same computer as the OPC viewer is), you must make sure that the listed port (in this case 62551) is open and forwarded on the network. SKF @ptitude Observer internal OPC server automatically publishes all measurements that it is measuring († fig. 5) (only active units and measurement points will be published).
Fig. 5. Published measurement points.
Fig. 6. Reading values from a published measurement point.
8. You can select the “Sine” wave channel that, in this case, is an OPC measurement that SKF @ptitude Observer is reading from an OPC server. Right-click in this viewer and select Read († fig. 6).
9. This will display the last reading available. If the measurement in SKF @ptitude Observer is set up to store every 10 minutes, then if you refresh after the storage interval, you will get a new value from the internal OPC server of SKF @ptitude Observer († fig. 7).
Fig. 7. Last available reading from the measurement point.
Then click Next: 1st value:
Fig. 8. First measured value.
Fig. 9. Second measured value.
External OPC server
This part of the document assumes that an OPC server already exists on the network. If you do not have an OPC server, you can obtain one by searching the internet for "OPC Servers" or "OPC UA Servers". Some are free for testing (like Matrikon’s OPC server after registration).
If it is only for testing/learning, we suggest you use the Iconics OPC UA simulator, because it would also generate some demo data for you to make it easier during your tests.
1. First, verify in your OPC server the alias group and contents that you need to send to SKF @ptitude Observer database or where you want to write from SKF @ptitude Observer. In this case, for a Matrikon OPC server, the alias group is called "OPC Test" and the contents are "Output 1, 2 and 3" († fig. 10). Each content will be connected to SKF @ptitude Observer via OPC channels.
Fig. 10. Alias group "OPC Test" and its contents.
Fig. 11. External OPC Server menu.
2. Assuming your OPC server is running on the network (the same network that SKF @ptitude Observer Monitor Service has access to), go to
3. Then under "OPC Servers", click Add († fig. 12).
Fig. 12. External OPC server configuration.
4. Select "OPC" as Server type. In the Computer/IP field, fill in the IP address where SKF @ptitude Observer should try to find the OPC server (this is the IP address of the computer where the OPC Server is running) and click Search († fig. 13).
5. SKF @ptitude Observer will return after a few seconds with a list of available OPC servers that it could find at the specified IP address. 6. Select the server, enter the Scan interval you want to use and click OK († fig. 14) (SKF @ptitude Observer can use multiple OPC servers
simultaneously).
7. Once the OPC server is associated, it is necessary to add the channels (connected to the OPC alias group contents or tags). From the OPC
Server and channel settings window († fig 15), click Add from the "OPC Channels" section.
Fig. 16. Channel name similar to OPC alias contents.
9. Finally, you will be able to create OPC measurement points in order to trend OPC alias content. When adding a measurement point in a machine, select OPC Server and OPC trend based measurement point († fig. 17). Click OK.
Fig. 17. OPC trend based measurement point creation.
8. Define if the channel will be used as an input or output according to your needs. Click on the search button (...) and wait a few seconds until the OPC alias list appears († fig 16).
10. From the Measurement Point window († fig. 18), give a suitable Name and Description for the measurement point. Select the OPC
Sever and OPC Channel and then click OK.
Fig. 18. OPC trend based measurement point properties.
Exposing OPC UA to traditional OPC clients
Traditional OPC DA clients cannot see OPC UA servers († fig 20). The SKF @ptitude Observer install program automatically installs an OPC tool that allows you to wrap the OPC UA server in order to allow traditional OPC clients to see and use this server. The following steps show how this can be done:
Fig. 20. Matrikon client not detecting an OPC UA server.
1. Locate Opc.Ua.ConfigurationTool.exe and execute it. The default install path is: C:\Program Files (x86)\OPC Foundation\UA\v1.1\LDS\Bin († fig 21).
2. Go to the Manage COM Interop tab and select Wrap UA Server († fig. 22).
Fig. 22. Wrap OPC UA Server.
3. Type the Observer OPC UA server you would like to expose to the OPC clients and click OK († fig 23). You can find and copy the specific Observer OPC UA server from the Observer Monitor's Status tab († fig. 24).
Fig. 23. Specifying OPC UA server to wrap.
Default security settings are used († fig. 25), so you do not need to change anything unless your customer requires it (they can be edited by using the browse button (…) at the end of the path).
Fig. 25. Default security settings.
4. If security settings do not need to be changed, click OK. You will get a dialog where you can now select the protocol to expose († fig 26), click OK.
If wrapping works, you will get a list as in fig. 27.
Fig. 27. OPC UA wrapping configured.
When browsing with the OPC Client , you should now see the exposed OPC UA server of SKF @ptitude Observer († fig 28).
Fig. 28. OPC client detecting the OPC UA server.
You are now able to connect to the Observer UA server and use the browse function to see the published data. Data measurements are located under the node called "Online" on the Observer UA server († fig. 29).
Fig. 29. OPC UA data measurements.
Errors: If you get the error in fig. 30 when trying to wrap the server, you need to install the OPC UA development tools that contain the
drivers for DCOM.
Fig. 30. Exception error during wrap process.
Fig. 31. Installer for OPC UA configuration tool.
For convenience, the SKF @ptitude Observer install DVD includes the install for the OPC components in the Extra folder. Run the executable in \Extra\OPC UA Interop Components 1.01 († fig. 31).
Network considerations
On networks, it is mandatory to make sure the correct ports for OPC are also opened not only on the network/routers, but also on the computer/server running Monitor. Especially on Windows version 7 and later where the Windows Firewall is by default enabled. The only port that gets automatically added and "opened" during the installation of the OPC components is the OPC and OPC UA Discovery ports: 48400, 48401, 52601, 4843 and 4840 († fig. 32).
Fig. 32. Opened ports during the installation of the OPC components.
However, the ports on which SKF @ptitude Observer makes its OPC server's data available are ports 62551 and 62550 (depending on the protocol selected/used) († fig. 33).
Fig. 33. Monitor service viewer.
If the ports are not enabled in the firewall, this can lead to confusing problems because by default you would be possible to search for the OPC server/service of SKF @ptitude Observer, but you will not be able to connect to it.
To make this happen easily and trouble free, you must open up these two ports on the network and on the firewall of the computer/server running the SKF @ptitude Observer Monitor Service:
1. Go to the Windows Firewall interface. Either type "firewall" in the search area of the start menu or find it in Program Menu > Control
Fig. 34. Windows firewall.
2. Go to Advance settings († fig. 35).
3. Go to Inbound Rules and then New Rule († fig. 36).
Fig. 36. New inbound rule.
4. Create a new rule that allows ports 62550 and 62551 to pass through. Select "Port" and then click Next († fig. 37).
5. Select port type TCP and type the port numbers, separated by commas, and click Next († fig. 38).
Fig. 38. Port type TCP.
6. Select "Allow the connection" and click Next († fig. 39).
7. For the next selection, leave all three selected if you are not sure and click Next. If it works, you can then come back and deselect options depending on the network requirements († fig. 40).
Fig. 40. Rule configuration.
8. Fill in a Name and Description for this new rule. Click Finish to have the new rule created and take effect († fig. 41).
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