OPC is a de facto standard for interoperable communication in the automation industry, which is also often used for data exchange between management level and automation level in building automation. OPC is a set of different specifications and versions, which can be implemented independently of each other.
LOYTEC devices that support OPC have a built-in OPC server following the OPC XML-DA specification. When integrating the different communication technologies (CEA-709, BACnet, DALI, M-Bus, Modbus, KNX, etc.), OPC tags are automatically created without additional engineering effort and exposed via a Web services. The OPC server provides data access via Web services according to XML-DA, which are available over the same TCP port as the built-in web server. The OPC server exposes simple data points and complex AST™ functions as OPC tags for alarming (alarm management), scheduling, and trending (historic data recording). Since the OPC XML-DA standard does not specify corresponding tags for these functions, the OPC XML-DA server uses groups of OPC tags for exposing AST™ functions. Because Web services are built for being routed across the Internet, the built-in OPC XML-DA server uses basic authentication for protection against unauthorized write access. Authentication requires the operator user and the respective password.
The L-WEB System uses OPC XML-DA communication (Web services) for data exchange with LOYTEC devices. This allows for a hassle-free communication in the Intranet or Internet across firewalls and NAT routers. Also third-party applications such as SCADA systems can communicate as OPC XML-DA clients over the Intranet or Internet and access the built-in OPC server in a simple and secure way. The embedded OPC servers do not require extra PC hardware and can be distributed in the IP network.
More details on OPC communication can be found in the respective product manuals, which are available on download.