With the recently released 2019.2 (5.56) version of the OPC Data Client Toolkit, developers of OPC UA custom client applications can now add the latest extension to the OPC UA specifications, PubSub, short for Publish-Subscribe, to their applications. This version also brings items of value for developers of any type of OPC client application, and also highlights some updates from a 2019.1 release we did last month to prepare for this big release.
In this blog post, we will cover the most significant updates to OPC Data Client and how they will benefit you and your custom OPC client projects.
Before we dive into PubSub support and the other key features of the latest OPC Data Client, I'd also like to encourage you to visit the OPC Data Client website, if you haven't done so recently. You'll notice a major update designed to make it easier for you to find the information about OPC Data Client that you're looking for in as few clicks as possible. It's a hint of what's to come in 2020 throughout the Software Toolbox website.
Now let's cover the key updates available in the latest OPC Data Client.
To keep you current with the latest technologies, the following changes were made:
Part 14 of the OPC Unified Architecture adds the ability to deliver data sets using message-oriented middleware in a publish-subscribe communications model. This important new OPC UA specification expands the use cases for OPC UA in cloud applications and to lower power, low latency devices. PubSub allows OPC UA clients to publish and subscribe to data in OPC UA PubSub middleware and then every client subscribed can receive updates. This effectively enables a one-to-many configuration between a data source and consumers.
The OPC Data Client implementation of OPC UA PubSub in the 2019.2 release supports the subset of functionality that we believe based on user input that are useful now, and further features will be supported in future releases. If you’re an early adopter of OPC UA PubSub, we’d love to hear from you about your needs.
Subscribe to dataset messages with data or events from a publisher
Use OPC UA UDP, UADP, and OPC UA Ethernet protocol mappings
Included OPC UA Demo Publisher helps you test your client application
Load and inspect PubSub configuration from a binary file, or access it live in an OPC UA server over its information model
In addition to adding OPC UA PubSub, this release of the OPC Data Client includes:
Every developer loves examples and sample code. We couldn’t let this release go by without adding more and doing some updating, including:
With the addition of OPC UA PubSub and based on market feedback, we’ve now introduced a new Enterprise Edition. This new Edition sits between the Professional and Ultimate Editions and helps you to be able to license just what you need if you aren’t planning to use OPC UA PubSub which is available exclusively in the Ultimate Edition. You can learn more about the OPC Data Client Editions on our product pricing web page and in the online product documentation.
There’s lots more in this release you can read about in the release notes in our knowledge base.
If you already own a license of the OPC Data Client and are on an active support agreement, you can download the software from the trial version request page and upgrade for free by following the licensed user upgrade instructions.
If you have an older license and aren’t on an active support agreement, you can still get the latest version with an upgrade fee. Contact us for upgrade options.