An IO-Link Device can be configured by writing ISDU parameters. When a parameter of an IO-Link Device is written, the content is checked for consistency. This is useful, because it can happen that certain value combinations of some parameters are not valid configuration options.

When a single parameter is written, its value is checked against the other parameters that were configured before (or had this value by default). If the check fails, an error is returned. This behaviour causes problems if you want to change set of interdependent parameters.

Because of this, IO-Link provides block operations. If a device is set into the download state (via a system command) the device allows to write many parameters to the device without checking for consistency. When the block parameterization is finished (by sending another system command) the consistency of all changed parameters is checked as a whole. If all parameters are consistent, all changes are accepted, else all changes are rejected.

If the block operations are used to read several parameters, the device does not allow parameters to be changed during this time.

The needed IO-Link system commands (see IO-Link Specification) are mapped to OPC UA Methods.

To avoid concurrent access from different OPC UA Clients while the block operation is used by one OPC UA Client, the OPC UA Client should lock the IO-Link Device using the Lock Object defined in OPC 10000-100.