Performing an Exercise Based on Industrial Protocols and Standards

In Chapter 4, Implementing the Industrial IoT Data Flow, we learned about the Open Platform Communications (OPC) protocol. We looked at how the features of its original implementation were based on the Microsoft COM/DCOM architecture. We also looked at how it evolved into its current Unified Architecture (UA) and how it uses open and inter-operable standards to overcome constraints and security issues. After that, we learned how to gather industrial data from different sources in different deployment scenarios, using the Edge Gateway and OPC UA. Finally, we briefly discussed the differences between the Edge Gateway and edge computation. In this chapter, we will look at how to implement a basic data flow with OPC UA and Node-RED.

We will carry out a practical example using the following:

• Prosys OPC UA
• Node-RED...

Technical requirements

In this chapter, we will need the following prerequisites:

• Git: https://git-scm.com/downloads
• Node.js: https://nodejs.org
• Docker (optional): https://www.docker.com/products/docker-desktop
• Grunt: https://gruntjs.com/

The OPC UA Simulation Server

In this chapter, we will simulate a very simple industrial data flow to implement data acquisition through a simple edge device. To simulate the industrial data flow, we will use an OPC UA Simulation Server to generate the signals. OPC UA is managed by the OPC Foundation (https://opcfoundation.org/) and is the most common industrial operability standard. Several vendors have implemented their own solutions according to the OPC UA standard. We can find other open source drivers for the most common languages, such as Node.js, Python, and Java.

OPC UA Node.js

The OPC UA implementation for Node.js (http://node-opcua.github.io/) is one of the most popular libraries. It supports both the client and the...

The edge

We can develop our edge with different technologies and frameworks. In Chapter 10, Implementing a Cloud Industrial IoT Solution with AWS and Chapter 12, Performing a Practical Industrial IoT Solution with Azure, we will learn about AWS Edge (Greengrass) and Azure Edge. We will also develop a simple Edge MQTT with the AWS SDK, Azure SDK, and GCP SDK. To develop a simple edge to access the OPC UA server, we can use Node.js and the OPC UA client (http://node-opcua.github.io/). In this simple exercise, we are going to use a graphical interface called Node-RED.

Node-RED

Node-RED is an open source independent edge device, based on Node.js. Follow these steps:

1. Assuming Node.js is already installed, we can install Node-RED...

Summary

In this chapter, we have implemented our first data flow. We will reuse the Prosys OPC UA Simulation Server in the next two chapters—Chapter 12, Performing a Practical Industrial IoT Solution with Azure, and Chapter 10, Implementing a Cloud Industrial IoT Solution with AWS. In these, we will implement a more practical data flow with Azure and AWS. In the next chapter, we will also look at I-IoT middleware. We will learn about its basic functionalities and some key use cases that are useful in an industrial context.

Questions

1. Which of the following technologies is the most recent standard managed by the OPC Foundation?
   1. UA
   2. DA
   3. Modbus
2. What is the best way to make the OPC-UA proxy a secure server?
   1. Enable the firewall
   2. Avoid connecting through DA
   3. Connect with SIGNANDENCRYPT authentication

Further reading

Additional resources can be found through the following links:

• NodeJS OPC UA: https://github.com/node-opcua/node-opcua
• Docker Edge: https://www.docker.com/solutions/docker-edge
• Python OPC UA: https://python-opcua.readthedocs.io/en/latest/
• OPC Foundation: https://opcfoundation.org/