OPC UA is an open and royalty free set of standards designed as a universal communication protocol. While there are numerous communication solutions available, OPC UA has key advantages:
- A state of art security model (see OPC 10000-2).
- A fault tolerant communication protocol.
- An information modelling Framework that allows application developers to represent their data in a way that makes sense to them.
OPC UA has a broad scope which delivers for economies of scale for application developers. This means that a larger number of high quality applications at a reasonable cost are available.
The OPC UA model is scalable from small devices to ERP systems. OPC UA Servers process information locally and then provide that data in a consistent format to any application requesting data - ERP, MES, PMS, Maintenance Systems, HMI, Smartphone or a standard Browser, for example. For a more complete overview see OPC 10000-1.