OPC UA integration

To get your IoT project up and running, you need to access and communicate with data from all the different devices, sensors and machines in your IoT. And you need a standard form of communication across them all. That's where the OPC UA protocol comes in.

OPC Unified Architecture (OPC UA) is a machine-to-machine communication protocol used for industrial automation and developed by the OPC Foundation. The OPC UA platform in an platform-independent service-oriented architecture that integrates individual OPC Classic specifications into an extensible framework. OPC UA simplifies industrial connectivity so you can integrate all your devices, automation systems and software applications using a secure and platform-independent standard.

Why use OPC UA?
Using OPC UA you can easily connect your remote devices to Cumulocity IoT either in the cloud or at the edge, enabling device diagnostics, asset management, monitoring, reporting and other applications.

With Cumulocity IoT OPC UA integration, you can:

• Integrate any OPC-UA device into the platform without coding
• Plug in any device and the platform will automatically accommodate the capabilities and the structure of the data it provides
• Scale your infrastructure using multiple gateways

No VPN is required. The gateway establishes a secure, encrypted outgoing connection to our cloud platform, and you can use OPC UA at the edge as well as in the cloud.

By way of example, one company uses OPC UA integration for industrial connectivity—communication with different ovens in a baking process. Bakers get an alarm if they leave the bread in the oven too long and it is at risk of overcooking. The alarm moves the process from manual to automated, substantially reducing loss and waste.

Self service
As no coding is required, operational teams can easily connect to any OPC UA server. And they can use device auto-discovery to fully automate the detection and integration of devices with Cumulocity IoT.

Support for generic device types
You only need to define each device once. The device type definition defines the mapping from a machine to the corresponding IoT asset and the configuration—for example, which data to synchronize at which frequency.

Cloud-based configuration
We provide zero-touch installation of the OPC UA IoT gateway by a field engineer, through cloud-based remote configuration. So, no matter where engineers are, they can connect to different devices, without needing to be in the same room.

Take the next step

• Meet the Cumulocity IoT platform
• Learn more about IoT device connectivity
• Explore IoT device management