Configure OPC UA Items in Geo SCADA Expert

On a Geo SCADA Expert system, you configure the Geo SCADA Expert database so that entries in the database correspond to the plant and measuring instruments on your system. This section summarizes the database items that you need to configure to represent the OPC UA devices on your system.

In order to represent OPC UA devices, the OPC UA component has to be installed and running on the Geo SCADA Expert servers on your system. The component is located within the Server branch of the tree that is displayed in the Installation Wizard's Setup window (see Install a Driver in Geo SCADA Expert).

When you configure OPC UA items in the Geo SCADA Expert database, many of the settings for those items need to correspond to the settings of the relevant OPC UA devices on your system. Some settings are either fixed (incorporated into the design of the physical device), or are configured by an engineer. You need to have access to, or an understanding of, the settings of the OPC UA devices on your system before you can configure the OPC UA database items successfully. For example, you need to specify the URL of each OPC UA compatible server with which Geo SCADA Expert is to communicate on your system.

You also need to be aware of which optional features are required for each driver item. Such features might include:

• Alarm views
• Alarm redirections
• Historic data storage
• User methods.

You can also use core Geo SCADA Expert features with driver database items, including Lists, Trends, actions, and Mimics. For actions that are specific to this particular driver, see the relevant section in this driver guide. For information on core actions, see Actions that are Common to Many Drivers in the Geo SCADA Expert Guide to Drivers. For information about Lists, Trends, and Mimics, see the core documentation.

In order for Geo SCADA Expert to communicate with OPC UA compatible devices, you have to configure:

1. An OPC UA Discovery Server per discovery server that Geo SCADA Expert is to interrogate on your system. This is an optional configuration item that you only create and configure if you want to make use of any discovery services that might be available (see Configure an OPC UA Discovery Server).
2. An OPC UA Server per OPC UA compatible server with which Geo SCADA Expert is to communicate (see Configure an OPC UA Server).
3. An OPC UA Subscription per collection of data that Geo SCADA Expert is to read using the OPC UA protocol (see Configure an OPC UA Subscription).
4. An OPC UA Point of the appropriate type per item of data that Geo SCADA Expert is to retrieve from an OPC UA compatible server (see Points Used on OPC UA Servers).

To minimize the time that it takes to configure the required databases items for this driver, you may want to configure them in the order listed above, as point configuration requires you to specify a subscription, and subscription configuration requires you to specify an OPC UA server, and so on.