Using raspberry pi to connect to OPC server

Question

I'm pretty new to working with servers/clients and all that, which is why I'm having trouble communicating to a server with my Raspberry Pi.

Basically, I have an OLE Process Control (OPC) server and client with a bunch of tags on it that have information. What I am trying to do is find/write OPC source code that can search my server for those tags and then do stuff with them. Matrikon has a really good tutorial http://openopc.sourceforge.net/api.html that uses OpenOPC as its source code with pre-written functions and a simulation server. But when I use a real server (National Instruments OPC server), I am lost as to whether I can reuse the OpenOPC source code or if I need something else.

My instincts tell me that I am completely off track, so it would really help if someone else has dealt with this before and could point me in the right direction.

Thanks!

Answer 1

OPC is a defined interface between a client and server application. Of course, there are always a few gotchas but by-and-large, client code that works with one server should work with any server.

Answer 2

Basically, OPC DA is designed based on Windows OS.

Therefore, Raspberry Pi does not support OPC DA, because it is based on Linux OS.

If you have no choice but with Raspberry Pi and OPC DA, you should find an OPC Server, support both of OPC DA and OPC UA.

OPC UA was developed after OPC DA, and is designed to be OS-independent.

So, OPC UA will work on Raspberry Pi maybe...

If configure it as below, you will probably be able to use OPC DA communication with Raspberry Pi via OPC Server.

Raspberry Pi <-- (OPC UA) --> OPC UA / OPC DA Server <-- (OPC DA) --> Application

May the code be with you.