OPC Unified Architecture (OPC UA) is the universal standard for communication and data sharing between different devices from different vendors created by the OPC Foundation. Because of its generality and platform independence, the OPC UA is likely to become an important communication standard in the Industry 4.0 and IoT Internet of Things.

OPC UA client driver is available for Control Web 8.

OPC UA vznikla jako nástupce populární OPC, dnes nejèastìji oznaèované jako klasické OPC (OPC Classic). Klasické OPC navrhla organizace OPC Foundation v roce 1996. Tehdy ještì zkratka OPC znamenala OLE for Process Control. Jak vyplývá z názvu, jedná se o komunikaèní standard založený na technologii OLE (Object Linking and Embeding), patøící k technologii COM (Component Object Model) firmy Microsoft. Standard OPC se stal v prùmyslové automatizaci znaènì rozšíøeným, prakticky pro jakékoliv zaøízení používané v prùmyslu existuje klasický OPC server. Díky použitým technologiím je však klasické OPC možné používat pouze v operaèním systému Windows. Implementace napøíklad pøímo v PLC je velmi obtížná. Navíc pøístup ke vzdálenému serveru, který využívá DCOM (D jako distributed) je komplikovaný, obtížnì se konfiguruje a uživatelé s ním mají velké potíže. To byly dùvody ke vzniku nového standardu. Iniciativy se chopila stejná organizace OPC Foundation a v roce 2006 vydala první verzi OPC UA. OPC UA není závislé na žádné platformì. Existují implementace v ANSI C, Javì, nebo .NET. Dnes má již zkratka OPC jiný význam: Open Platform Communications.

OPC UA was established as a successor to the popular OPC, now most commonly referred to as OPC Classic. The classic OPC was designed by the OPC Foundation in 1996. At that time, OPC stands for OLE for Process Control. As the name implies, it is a communication standard based on Object Linking and Embeding (OLE) technology, belonging to Microsoft's Component Object Model (COM) technology. The OPC standard has become widespread in industrial automation, and there is a classic OPC server for virtually any industrial device. Thanks to the technologies used, classic OPC can only be used in the Windows operating system. Implementation, for example, directly in the PLC is very difficult. In addition, access to a remote server that uses DCOM (D as distributed) is complicated, difficult to configure. These were the reasons for a new standard. The initiative was taken by the same OPC Foundation and in 2006 it released the first version of OPC UA. OPC UA is platform independent. There are implementations in ANSI C, Java, or .NET. Today OPC stands for Open Platform Communications.

The configurator can be started from the data editor of Control Web.

The configurator connects to the selected OPC UA server and displays its address space. The left side shows the parametric file and the right side shows the server address space. The item selected in the server address space can be pasted into the parametric file (button Add to PAR). The channel type and direction are automatically set according to the item's parameters on the server.

The parameter file is displayed in the tree. It is possible to set corresponding parameters for individual items or groups.