OPC - OPC UA as the link between automation and IT worlds

REVIEWA total of 190 participants from 16 countries were able to catch up on OPC UA technology as well as its distribution and application. A pre-conference provided information about the OPC UA technology and its benefits: experts gave presentations on interoperability in data and information exchange that is independent from the manufacturer, operating system and language, in conjunction with integrated security functions and access rights to a wide range of information models.

The main conference kicked off with a keynote speech by Prof. Detlef Zühlke, DFKI (German Research Center for Artificial Intelligence), on the subject of Industry 4.0 and standards. "Industry 4.0 needs OPC UA" was his theme. An analysis of participant feedback revealed Prof. Zühlke's comprehensive keynote as the most valuable contribution of the conference.

Jens Wiesener, representing the German Federal Office for Information Security (BSI) reported on the start of the security evaluation of OPC UA at the specification and reference implementation levels, indicating that this cross-vendor technology is regarded as key for German Industry 4.0 interests. Security is also an important aspect for the increasing number of mobile devices that are used in automation and IT applications today: the topic of the second highest scoring presentation in the voting was "Browser-based OPC UA integration". TU Dresden and the company, Ascolab demonstrated web pages based on HTML5 and javascript, combined with secured OPC UA communication standards, as platform-independent operating concepts.