4/12/2008
The first OPC UA Developers' Workshop will be held on June 16-18, 2008 at the Marriott McDowell Mountain Resort in Scottsdale, AZ. This three-day training event will include a full day of instruction on OPC UA and two full days of specific instruction in either C++ / ANSCI C or .NET programming. This event is designed for Engineering Developers who wish to learn how to build an OPC UA server or client.
The UA Dev Workshop is aimed at developers that are about to start or have just started a project using the UA code deliverables. The complete agenda is being finalized, and tailored to the needs of the participants. The general breakdown is one day of UA design and code architecture, followed by 2 days of hands on lab using either the C/C++ or the .NET code base (i.e. there are 2 tracks and each attendee needs to pick one or the other).
An engineer who attends this course should be able to return to his/her company and develop an OPC UA product.
This important three-day event will provide a solid foundation for all developers to get a jumpstart on the bits and bytes for building products that incorporate the OPC Unified Architecture technology into their products and services. All companies who plan to roll out products that demonstrate secure, reliable interoperability need to attend this important event. The event is a hands-on jumpstart program that will feature a complete walk-through of the OPC Foundation Unified Architecture reference implementations. The original developers will provide the attendees a solid foundation for product development. We will also facilitate attendess converting OPC COM products to native OPC UA implementations.
A complete agenda will be published after we gather data from those that register prior to April 30, 2008. The event will be tailored to the needs of the audience, as this is intended to be very tailored training and hands on to facilitate developers specific requirements. 3/26/2008
The OPC independent certification test lab opened the first week of February. The first company that tested their products successfully through the lab was Cyberlogic. Cyberlogic has been very active in the development of all the processes and test cases with respect to the lab throughout the last several years. Their active participation in all the activities of OPC coupled with their excellent commitment to quality from design through deployment definitely paid off.
There are a number of other companies that are currently are scheduled and are actively testing their products through the independent certification test lab. We're currently processing the results of several of the companies and I will be reporting some additional companies that have passed in the next several days.
The backbone of the Independent Certification Test Lab is the reference hardware/software that is the basis for testing all other products.
The following companies have provided hardware/software to the lab as part of this program: ABB, Beckhoff, Cyberlogic, GE Fanuc Intelligent Platforms, ICONICS, Kepware, Matrikon, OSI, Rockwell Automation, Siemens, Softing, Software Toolbox and Wonderware. I wish to acknowledge all the companies that have donated hardware and software as part of the reference set for the independent certification test lab. These really are the companies that truly are dedicated to interoperability, and essentially other vendors products will be benchmarked and tested against the reference products that are installed in the lab.
I encourage the readers of this blog to contact the vendors that are not listed in the reference set above to contact me if they are interested in having their products also be added to the reference portfolio.
I thought I'd mention that I've run into a number of people who were part of the real first wave when OPC first got started in 1995 and before.
There are probably a hundred other people that I should mention here, but for now here are a few of the great people that you should know that really were instrumental in the early development of OPC....
In November, I invited a surprise guest to our OPC Foundation Board of Directors meeting. The surprise guest was my long-time friend and colleague Al Chisholm. Al really was the visionary that was responsible for OPC to begin with. Without Al there never would have been OPC. Al was also one of the first board members of the OPC Foundation. He's now involved in a new venture called LongWatch. He's one of the few guys that I know that can recite the digits of PI.
In October, I ran into my good friend Jack Smith, from Plant Engineering magazine and AppliedAutomation. Jack had been bantering about long before OPC got started about the need for a standard to address data/device communication, and really he had a lot of the first ideas that ultimately became OPC Data Access. So if you're looking to really identify one of the first people who was a creative genius recognizing the opportunity, we have to give Jack credit for the idea. Of course if you don't like OPC you can blame Jack for getting us into this mess to begin with. Just kidding.... stay tune for visionary ideas in the future to come from Jack.
I also ran into our good friend Ken Hopkins. Ken was leading the WinSem group when we first created the OPC task force. Ken gave us a lot of great ideas that we were able to use in the first draft of the OPC data access specification. He also was our mentor, and facilitated getting a lot of the original WinSem members to engage in development and adoption of the OPC technology. Ken broke away from automation for awhile, but rumor has it he's back consulting in automation, and I look forward to working with Ken as we expand the horizon of opportunities for OPC UA deployment in other domains.
I also wanted to mention, that last June I had a great opportunity to reconnect with Neil Peterson, from Emerson Process. Neil was one of the first developers of OPC data access as well, and of course his major contribution that he fought hard for was public groups. It took us years to digest the importance of public groups. In OPC UA, we have created views, which basically are modeled after Neil's original harebrained idea called public groups... okay I had to have some fun here... Neil got his MBA, and has now moved from the technical side of the fence to the marketing side of the fence.
A lot of things happened during the first quarter of 2008 for the OPC Foundation.
This is not an all inclusive list but it's a quick ramble as I'm on my way to Germany for one of my important collaboration steering committee meetings. (FDI).
Feel free to contact me with any questions you may have about what the OPC Foundation has done or is planning on doing over the balance of the year.
Some of the major things going on in OPC in the first quarter included:
- The OPC Independent Certification Test Lab Opened
- OPC training events in 2008 kicked off with a seminar in Long Beach, followed by a seminar in Quincy, MA.
- The OPCConnect (the electronic newsletter of the OPC Foundation) first edition of 2008 was released (click here to read this edition)
- The OPC/IEC Unified Architecture working group met in January in Florida in a great hotel on the Gulf Coast. It was quite a pleasure to get some warm weather.
- OPC took advantage of the great networking opportunity by attending the ARC Forum in Orlando in February.
Some of the major things that are going to happen with respect to OPC in the second quarter include:
- OPC North American annual interoperability workshop is being held and hosted by Wonderware in Lake Forest California starting the week of March 31, 2008. Check the news item for the list of companies that currently have registered and are bringing their products to be tested.
- OPC will be hosting the first OPC Developer Workshop in Scottsdale, Arizona in June. It will be a hot topic in more ways than one between the weather, and the extensive jumpstart that will be provided by the developers to companies that are planning and currently building products based on the OPC UA technology for 2008 deployment.
- OPC will be participating in the Microsoft Manufacturing forum in April.
- OPC will be participating and attending a number of OPC Foundation Member events, and presenting OPC UA to their respective end users/system integrator audiences. Feel free to contact me if you're interested in OPC attending one of your end-user events.
- OPC is creating a system integrator/distributor membership class and putting together the appropriate process and tools to facilitate certification of system integrators and distributors as OPC experts. Make sure that your system integrators and distributors become members of the OPC Foundation and take advantage of this great opportunity.
- The OPC TAC (Technical Advisory Council) will have a meeting in Redmond, with a packed agenda of visionary, strategic, and mainstream things to be executed and review.
- The OPC Foundation members will be participating in PackExpo in May. I'm very pleased with the work that my colleague David Bauman has been doing leading this very important initiative. If you're interested in being a sponsor and participating in this event I encourage you to contact David Baumann immediately.
- OPC is actively engaged in Connectivity Week with a special event called IndConn (Industrial Connectivity), and will have multiple tracks and very significant speakers/panelist participating and brainstorming the future. This is a very significant event giving the OPC Foundation members the opportunity to enhance their product portfolio through taking advantage of both automation and domains outside of automation including building automation, power generation, and security. This all got started through a partnership that was formed as part of our participation in GridWise. David Hardin is the point of contact and more information about presenting and attending this event. Anto Budiardjo is the point of contact for vendors interested in being a sponsor and increasing market share for their respective products.
- OPC is engaged in automation IT sponsored by the OpenO&M initiative. This is a great event that's being led by my colleagues at ISA and promises to be a well attended event with the leaders of our industry actively participating. Contact Bob Crigler for more information.
- OPC training events will continue with a visit to Pittsburgh, Seattle and Nashville in the second quarter of 2008.
First off this give a special round of applause thanking Eric for kicking the OPC TAC blog off.
I encourage you to read and participate in the Technical Advisory Council blog. The members of the Technical Advisory Council are responsible for the technical direction of the OPC Foundation and I encourage all to have a regular dialogue and understand the vision and the direction that they are driving the OPC Foundation.
I hope you will take the opportunity to hear from the members on this blog, and also take the time to give us your feedback.
Thanks for listening.
1/28/2008
Recently one of our colleagues from an Asian country had a very unfortunate incident while traveling through Chicago. I've probably kept much of the information very generic to protect my innocent colleague.
He was on his way to an OPC meeting, and while coming from Asia he had to travel through Chicago. As he was going through security, he did all the right things of unpacking his belongings and emptying his pockets into the bin to go through the security screening. Unfortunately, a woman who was behind him took the opportunity to snatch his wallet from the bin as he went forward through security.
He detected that his wallet was missing, and out of the corner of his eye he realized the lady who was behind him would've been the only person that could've snatched his wallet so easily. She went around him after going through security she promptly tried to depart the security area. He reached for her and grabbed her in an attempt to restrain her and stop her from departing security with his wallet. Unfortunately, security reacted and ended up arresting my colleague for accosting the lady. Of course the language barrier also was not in his favor, and he was basically being accused of grabbing the lady independent of the fact that she was getting away with stealing his wallet.
Security let the lady leave the security area, and essentially my colleague was arrested. Security never bothered to listen to my colleague before the lady left the area to see if she was taking his wallet.
Long story short, the lady later came back to security as a witness to my colleague attacking her. Of course now the wallet has been disposed of and the content is provided to someone else.
It seems an arrest in that my colleague who now own did not have a wallet was about to be arrested and charged for trying to stop a person from taking his wallet.
The lesson learned here is take all of your contents out of your pockets that is absolutely necessary in order to go through the security screening, and make sure you put your contents inside of your appropriate bag long before you get to the security area. It is your job to make it extremely difficult for anyone to steal your belongings as you parade through the security.
My colleague is now forced to get an attorney to defend himself and the complications of living abroad will be a nightmare over the next several months as he pleads his innocence in this unfortunate incident.
Thoughts?
The following is the philosophy of Charles
Schultz, the creator of the 'Peanuts' comic strip.
You don't have to
actually answer the questions.
Just read the e-mail straight through,
and you'll get the point.
1. Name the
five wealthiest people in the world.
2. Name the last
five Heisman trophy winners.
3. Name the last five
winners of the Miss America pageant.
4. Name ten people
who have won the Nobel or Pulitzer Prize.
5. Name the
last half dozen Academy Award winners for best actor and actress.
6. Name
the last decade's worth of World Series winners.
How did you
do?
The point is, none of us remember the headliners of yesterday.
These are no
second-rate achievers;
They are the best in their fields.
But the applause dies.
Awards tarnish.
Achievements are forgotten.
Accolades and
certificates are buried with their owners.
Here's
another quiz. See how you do on this one:
1. List a few teachers who
aided your journey through school.
2. Name three friends who have
helped you through a difficult time.
3. Name five people who have
taught you something worthwhile.
4. Think of a few people who
have made you feel appreciated and special.
5. Think of five people
you enjoy spending time with.
Easier?
The lesson:
The people who make a
difference in your life are not the ones with the most credentials...
the most money...
or the most awards.
They are
simply the ones that care the most.
Pass this on to those people who have made a
difference in your life.
1/16/2008
Happy New Year !
I wanted to start the year off right, and start the process of communicating what are some of the important events and happenings from the OPC Foundation in 2008.
The vision of the OPC Foundation for 2008 and beyond is really to provide specifications and technology to facilitate a service-oriented architecture focused at secure reliable interoperability that is platform-independent.
To put it in more simple terms we want to provide a standardized reliable services architecture that encapsulates all the existing OPC functionality from the mid-90s through today that was deployed as OPC COM/DCOM products. It's all about integration of data/information from devices and applications at the lowest tiers(and it keeps getting lower as the cost of devices and the functionality they are capable of doing changes) to the highest tier in the enterprise.
Okay let's try and make this even simpler. OPC wants to be the USB for plug-and-play interoperability between anything ! We are talking about providing the services necessary for discovering and exchanging data/information between multivendor components, where a component could be hardware or software...
Success is measured by the level of adoption of the technology. OPC is not interested in developing specifications that are not worth the paper they're printed on. In order to get successful adoption of the technology OPC has taken on the strategy of providing product quality reference implementations that go far beyond where the paper specifications begin. Working with a volunteer army of dedicated resources from over 50 companies in our industry is a daunting task. But one of the best strategies to facilitate vendor adoption of the technology is to make the companies an integral part of the development team.
So what is the OPC Foundation primary focus for 2008?
To provide the best-of-breed specifications and technology, that all vendors will be able to easily adopt as standard technology to be deployed into real-world products that exceed the end user's expectations for interoperability and integration in a multivendor scenario.
First it's about completing the delivery and facilitating deployment of the OPC UA specifications and corresponding multiplatform reference implementations. It's about building a distribution channel to maintain and support the deliverables of the OPC Foundation providing product quality deliverables to facilitate plug-and-play interoperability of the OPC UA technology by the OPC Foundation members.
We are also continuing to focus on certification. One of the top projects that we have on the horizon to be completed and opened this year is an independent certification test lab in Europe on February 1, 2008 followed by an independent certification test lab to be opened in North America on or before July 1, 2008. We are also currently looking at an opportunity to open an independent certification test lab in Asia. The independent certification test lab is based on the popular successful independent certification test labs of the industrial Ethernet consortiums.
Collaboration with other consortiums in the interest of providing a solid infrastructure for multivendor interoperability for complex information data models is far more than being strategic to the OPC Foundation and the other consortiums.
We continue to work proactively with EDDL/FDT/FDI, and we currently are in the final stages of rolling out OPC UA with EDDL allowing for seamless configuration, diagnostic and runtime operation for devices that reside on the industrial networking technology of FF, Profibus/Profinet and Hart. This is a very important collaboration between OPC and these respective three organizations that provide a best-of-breed networking technology in our industry.
We are actively working with our collaboration focused on the enterprise information integration. This is called OpenO&M, which is a partnership/collaboration between OPC, Mimosa, ISA, and Oagi. There are vendors and end users already in phases of deploying total business solutions based on this collaborative effort, leveraging multivendor products in a plug-and-play scenario. 10/16/2007ICONICS reinforces OPC-UA commitmentAutomation.com (press release) - Eden Prairie,MN,USA
Houston, TX - ISA '07 — October 3, 2007 — ICONICS announced its ongoing commitment to the OPC Unified Architecture (OPC-UA) standard. OPC-UA is a robust, ...
Walking the ISA Expo Floor - Part 2By Dale Peterson
MSPatch is working with ISA SP99 WG6; MSSecure is inactive; and MSOPC is really unnecessary given the work the OPC Foundation does. MSMUG is, in my opinion, only useful for the annual or bi-annual forum in Redmond where the ...
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