Introduction to OPC: The course begins with an introduction to OPC and explains the fundamental concepts including the vision of OPC. Through examples and case studies, participants will understand how OPC compares to traditional or proprietary connectivity methods. Emphasis will be placed on the most common specification - OPC Data Access (DA). Participants will also learn the history of OPC and how it has evolved into the largest connectivity standard used within the automation industry today.
OPC Tunnelling Technology: OPC Tunnelling technology deals with the exchange of process data across different domains, WANS, unreliable networks and low bandwidth infrastructures. The factors that impact these environments will be explained and participants will be shown how OPC Tunnelling is used to resolve these issues.
OPC Alarms & Events: The OPC Alarms and Events (A&E) module begins by explaining the differences between alarms and events. The presentation will cover OPC A&E types, conditions and sub-conditions, notifications, and states. Alarms & Events State Diagrams are used to depict specific scenarios at the end of the module.
OPC Redundancy: This module explores how redundancy can be applied to different levels of the plant infrastructure in order to achieve the highest degree of communication reliability possible. Device, driver, and application level redundancy will be presented and discussed. This includes connection policies, watchdog tags, diagnostics and statistics. Discussions will also include the business and economic impact redundant systems have on a plant.
OPC Client Server Architecture: The client/server architecture is the basis of any OPC architecture. Using the client/ server architecture, students learn how to connect various control systems together, and transfer data between these systems.
OPC Historical Data Access: This module looks at the OPC Historical Data Access (HDA) specification and how it differs from OPC DA. Common OPC client applications such as trenders and spreadsheets will be demonstrated and OPC utilities will be used to transport and migrate historical data from one source to another.