I have an C# application that uses OPC UA to communicate. Now I need to communicate with an Osisoft Pi system, which as I understand it also "is" an OPC UA Client. There is no PLC involved!
My client and the Osisoft Pi is running on different computers in the LAN.
The OPC UA Server (KepServerEx 6) needs a driver configured.
What driver would be appropriate for this scenario?
On
You would need an OSIsoft UA Interface licence to communicate with it using OPC UA.
OSIsoft PI is a historian run on a server i would suspect your client is scared of licencing costs. There are ways and means, you can insert the data into AF and still have it visible to the PI systems, however it is limited and the better way to do it is to implement the correct OSIsoft interface or protocol.
As mentioned above AF-SDK is the way to go for C#, however be aware you will need an PSA licence on the server to run it.
If you are using C#, the most native way to connect to the PI System is by using PI AF SDK. This sdk will allow you to connect to both the PI Data Archive as well as PI Asset Framework Server.
The first server (PI DA) contains the process data collected via PI Interfaces or PI Connectors (typically OPC, Modbus, flat files etc). PI AF (Asset Framework) is a server that allows to create all the assets hierarchies of a plant and map asset attributes to the process data collected in PI DA.
Perhaps, you should look at PI System interfaces or connectors to collect the data first, and then use the data stored in the PI System to build your application. This is the standard usage of the PI System who helps reducing different vendors silos of process data.
To get a quick start on the multiple ways to use the PI System as a developer have a look here: OSIsoft PI Developer Technologies
And to get started with the PI System, and understand what it is about, you should look here: What is the PI System?