Web access

General topics regarding OPC Foundation and communication technology in general.

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Bogaat
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Web access

Post by Bogaat »

So I am a newbie to the idea of OPCUA, but am intrigued. Ideally I would have access to my tags/nodes client side when building html/javascript. What is the shortest path to make that work given your products? Do I need to build a service with endpoints on the web server or is there something like that already in place? Thanks for any and all feedback.

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Re: Web access

Post by Support Team »

Hi,

There are two ways to access OPC UA from a HTML/Java Script client in a web browser.

Option 1 - OPC UA client in web server
You can implement an OPC UA client in your web server that delivers the HTML pages and your Java Script code to the web browsers.
Advantages: works with any OPC UA server on the market
Disadvantage: you must implement your own protocol to send updated data to the web client

Option 2 - use of HTTPS based OPC UA protocol
OPC UA defines now also a HTTPS / UA Binary protocol that can be used directly in web browser applications.
Advantage: With an OPC UA binary Java Script library you can access OPC UA servers directly
Disadvantage: This new protocol option is not supported by many servers yet and you need the web server that delivers the html pages and Java Script code must be also proxy for the OPC UA servers (same origin policy problem)

Best Regards,
Unified Automation Support Team

Bogaat
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Re: Web access

Post by Bogaat »

Thank you for the feedback. So option 2 looks like something I would want to poke at. Can you point me to specific implementations of a js library as well as servers that may support it? I currently run a DA 2.0 server and would be wrapping it using your gateway.

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Re: Web access

Post by Support Team »

Hi,

Our C++ SDK and .NET SDK already support the HTTPS UA Binary protocol as experimental feature but it is deactivated by default.

The current release of UaGateway does not support the HTTPS UA Binary protocol.

We have already developed a JAVA Scrip library for the HTTPS UA Binary protocol. It is also in prototype state and not available yet.

Please contact sales@unifiedautomation.com for more details.

Best Regards,
Unified Automation Support Team

danielhua
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Re: Web access

Post by danielhua »

Hi Support Team,

Is there any update on the web access solution on the C++ SDK? Is it still experimental or it is release quality of the latest 1.5.4 version? Do you offer any demo server enables it that could directly access with the https protocol?

Thanks,
-Daniel

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Re: Web access

Post by Support Team »

Hello,

there are no updates on this. The so called hybrid-binding (https with UA binary encoded payload) is still "experimental". In all our SDK but especially in C++ SDK and ANSI C SDK it is even compiled-out to save code size. Only in our ready to use precompiled CppDemoServer (Windows Setup) the experimental feature can be switched on in the configuration. However, it is not officially released and it is not tested by us. Hence we do not recommend to use it. BTW you will not find many communication partners out there supporting such hybrid binding.

The OPC Foundation is currently working on Websocket binding which technically makes much more sense and fits much better to OPC UA communication schema. However, this new specification is not released yet, and hence not yet implemented by us.
Best regards
Unified Automation Support Team

yvesP
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Re: Web access

Post by yvesP »

Hi support team,
which communication support combinations are currently officially supported next to opc.tcp with a Binary SerializerType?
Regards.

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Re: Web access

Post by Support Team »

Hello,

currently we officially only support the UA-Binary on TCP/IP (opc.tcp:)´. This is the only madatory protocol binding for all servers, and by this full compatibility to all other OPC UA Servers is ensured.
Best regards
Unified Automation Support Team

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