Server to Server interactions in the Client Server model are interactions in which one Server acts as a Client of another Server. Server to Server interactions allow for the development of servers that:

  1. exchange information with each other on a peer-to-peer basis, this could include redundancy or remote Servers that are used for maintaining system wide type definitions (see Figure 5),
  2. are chained in a layered architecture of Servers to provide:
  3. aggregation of data from lower-layer Servers,
  4. higher-layer data constructs to Clients, and
  5. concentrator interfaces to Clients for single points of access to multiple underlying Servers.

Figure 5 illustrates interactions between Servers.

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Figure 5 – Peer-to-peer interactions between Servers

Similar peer-to-peer interactions can also be accomplished using the OPC UA PubSub model where each peer Application is both a Publisher and a Subscriber.

Figure 6 extends the previous example and illustrates the chaining of Servers together for vertical access to data in an enterprise.

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Figure 6 – Chained Server example