5.4 Downloading a NameSpace from the Cloud Library into a “blank” UA Server Instance

Abby works as an OT engineer at a steel welder machine manufacturer. For a new model steel welder that she is currently working on, her team has decided to map the proprietary information model provided by the machine to an OPC UA AddressSpace. Abby has learned that there is a vast online library of existing OPC UA NameSpaces out there, so instead of starting from scratch, she decides to base her information model on one of the existing NameSpaces, especially given the fact that her company has been using OPC UA for a while now and there have also been contributions to the Cloud Library. She goes online and quickly finds the Cloud Library main frontend website. She authenticates with the website and browses its metadata via one of the REST APIs. Within minutes, she finds the specific NameSpace that she wants to use in her “blank” OPC UA server built into the steel welder based on capability keywords that she has provided. There is also a preview of a subset of the NameSpace available directly on the Cloud Library frontend website where she can be confident that the NameSpace has the right information included for her. Building a machine OPC UA AddressSpace used to take weeks, now she can make it available for testing within minutes.

She acquires the license for the NameSpace she wants to use. She downloads the NameSpace in nodeset.json format and imports it into her OPC UA server via the standard OPC Foundation reference tools (e.g. “modelcompiler” tool).

After a few minutes, the OPC UA sever built into the steel welder is up and running and she can start browsing the newly created AddressSpace using a standard OPC UA Client application running on her laptop. She then starts wiring up data nodes to machine sensors and starts implementing the defined OPC UA Methods to control the machine.