Software Toolbox Technical Blog

If you use OPC UA, you are likely at least somewhat familiar with OPC UA certificates. OPC UA client and server applications typically have Application Instance Certificates to provide application-level security. They are used for establishing a secure connection using Asymmetric Cryptography.

OPC UA certificates include a digital signature by the generator of the certificate. This digital signature can be self-signed or can be signed by a Certificate Authority (CA). Both types of certificates provide the same level of security and can be used in Asymmetric Cryptography. The major difference between CA signed and self-signed certificates in an OPC UA installation is the effort required to deploy and maintain the certificates. The choice of when to use a CA issued certificate versus a self-signed certificate depends on the installation and site requirements.

Many of our products leverage the OPC UA Configuration tool from the OPC Foundation to create and trust certificates and certificate authorities (CA). This tool actually installs with our OPC Data Client toolkit but is also available from the OPC Foundation. But how do we navigate this tool and the use of OPC UA certificates as a whole?

In this blog post, we will cover both methods of UA certificate signing, as well as the tool mentioned above for easily managing UA certificates for your OPC UA applications.

Are you an AVEVA™ System Platform user but you also have some other client or system (HMI, SCADA, other) and need that system to access data from System Platform?  It's a use case that sometimes occurs if your company is acquired another company and a non-AVEVA HMI/SCADA came as part of the assets.  Or perhaps your company merged with another and now your AVEVA system is expected to integrate with other systems.  Your options for sharing data largely depend on what software interfaces these "other systems" support.

In this blog post, I'll discuss how to share your AVEVA System Platform 2020 (or newer) data via OPC UA (without using OI Gateway) using the TOP Server OPC UA Client driver for situations where you have another non-OPC UA capable client application that needs access to process data in your AVEVA system.

A common use case that we encounter with many AVEVA™ users is the need to share data from System Platform with some other client or system (HMI, SCADA, other). It's not uncommon for a company to be acquired by another company and its assets and a non-AVEVA HMI/SCADA came as part of the assets.  Or perhaps a system is being add with limited interfaces for external connectivity.  Your options for sharing data largely depend on what software interfaces these "other systems" support.

In this blog post, I'll discuss how to share your AVEVA System Platform 2020 (or newer) data via OPC UA (without using OI Gateway) using the OPC Router for situations where you have another non-OPC UA capable client application that needs access to process data in your AVEVA system such as an ERP system, IIoT platform, web service and more.

If you’re reading this post, you’ve almost certainly at least heard of DCOM. And, possibly, you’re one of many who have struggled over the years with the trials of configuring remote OPC Classic connections between machines where DCOM inevitably increased your time and difficulty for what should be a relatively painless task.

DCOM Hardening is Permanent in 6d 1h 34m 0s

DCOM hardening with no option to disable it is coming up fast - March 14, 2023. If you haven't already made a plan to either migrate away from DCOM communications entirely or address how to keep your process systems that will still rely on remote OPC Classic over DCOM working reliably, time is running out. Downtime is costly and a system that is using OPC Classic and hasn't been evaluated to determine the effects of DCOM hardening could be vulnerable to communication breaks.

This blog post discusses 6 types of options to relieve DCOM hardening pain. These include alternatives to DCOM that cover a range of use cases depending on what software you already have installed and your existing system architecture. We also have a comprehensive guide that you'll be able to request that addresses what DCOM changes will be needed if you're not in a position to migrate currently.  Our technical support team are also willing to discuss your specific requirements with you, so you're not on your own out there! 

Software Toolbox Products DCOM Readiness and Action FAQs

Are you or have you ever been in a situation where you were working with both an AVEVA™ solution and some other client or system (HMI, SCADA, other) and needed to share data?  Perhaps your company acquired another company and its assets and a non-AVEVA HMI/SCADA came as part of the assets.  Or perhaps your company merged with another and now your AVEVA system is expected to integrate with other systems.  Your options for sharing data largely depend on what software interfaces these "other systems" support.

In this blog post, I'll discuss how to share your AVEVA System Platform 2020 (or newer) data via OPC UA (without using OI Gateway) using the Cogent DataHub® for situations where you have another non-OPC UA capable client application that needs access to process data in your AVEVA system.

For users that have never worked with OmniServer, it can be intimidating thinking about how to take information out of a device manual or protocol document and convert that into an OmniServer protocol for your device. OmniServer makes this significantly easier, though, than alternatives such as custom code, especially once you're familiar with how OmniServer works and how to get started.

Continuing our Tech Support Corner blog series, this blog post covers six tips I know should help any relatively new users be successful getting OmniServer connected to your non-standard devices as quickly as possible.

If you're reading this, you likely have at least one Siemens S7 PLC on your network being used in your industrial process and need to integrate data from that process. And, like many of our Siemens users, you're likely interested in accessing symbolic references (versus the traditional Siemens variable addresses) supported by newer S7 controllers.

In this video blog, I'll show you how to get started using our Siemens S7 Plus Ethernet driver (part of the Siemens S7 Plus Suite) to connect and gather real-time process data from Siemens S7-1500 and S7-1200 PLC symbolic variables/tagnames for AVEVA Wonderware applications.

As you may be aware, Wireshark is an incredibly useful freeware tool for capturing network traffic on a computer. Our support engineers find it to be invaluable for troubleshooting Ethernet communications issues, as it provides visibility into more than just the protocol data packets, including handshaking calls and responses.

Wireshark also provides options for specifying capture filters (for defining a smaller subset of data to be captured that you're interested in) or you can capture all traffic and apply a display filter to narrow down the traffic that is visible.

Continuing our Tech Support Corner blog series, this blog post covers how to go even further using Wireshark by defining scripted custom Wireshark captures for specific use cases, which is helpful for capturing infrequent issues without wasting a lot of unnecessary hard drive space.