Virtual Training: Adding OPC UA to Your Custom OPC DA Server

With OPC DA Classic having been the de-facto standard for integrating industrial automation systems for so many years, I'm sure there are quite a few of you who might have custom developed OPC DA servers using SLIK-DA. Now, of course, migrations to OPC UA are on the rise with its enhanced security, encryption and efficiency.

Of course, the prospect of replacing that OPC DA server entirely with a replacement that supports OPC UA might be less than ideal. But have you considered adding an OPC UA server interface to that existing OPC DA custom application?

In this video blog, we teach you how to add an OPC UA Server interface to your existing OPC DA Server interface using the SLIK-DA/UA rapid development toolkit with your custom software application (NO ADDITIONAL CODE). If you missed our last post on how to add an OPC DA interface to your custom software, click here.

Watch this video to learn how add an OPC UA server interface to an existing SLIK-DA developed custom OPC DA server application using SLIK-DA with UA with absolutely no additional code being necessary. Looking for other articles and information about SLIK-DA?  Click here!

Just to summarize, in this video, I've shown you:

1. A review of what directories you'll need to identify on your Visual Studio development machine where SLIK-DA was used to build your OPC DA server.
   1. The application directory for your OPC DA server application.
   2. The installation directory for the SLIK-DA toolkit.
2. The specific files you'll need to copy from the SLIK-DA toolkit installation folder under Redistributables to your custom application directory:
   1. SLIKDAUAConfig.xml configuration file sample
   2. Add_PKI_dir_structure.bat
3. How to use the SLIK-DA OPC UA Configurator utility to customize the SLIKDAUAConfig.xml file for your application, including:
   1. Build information and naming
   2. OPC UA server endpoints including ports, certificates and encryption settings
   3. Authentication requirements
   4. Local Discovery Server parameters
   5. Handling for rejecting certificates
   6. Sampling Rate
4. Running your OPC UA server and confirming it should now be available to OPC UA client applications.
5. Testing connectivity and functionality to your custom OPC UA server using the Unified Automation UA Expert test client.
6. Verifying your results with an OPC DA test client (since your OPC server now supports both OPC UA and OPC DA simultaneously).

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Ready to turn your own custom SLIK-DA OPC DA Classic server into an OPC UA server?