OPC Certified for Reliable Interoperability with OPC Clients & Servers

Standards-based connectivity for OPC client applications

TOP Server supports OPC server-side interfaces for the OPC Classic Data Access (DA) industry standards as well as OPC Unified Architecture (DA Profile) and OPC .NET 3.0 with any driver license at no extra cost.

OPC Classic Alarms and Events are also supported for the Event Log (Simple Events only - other OPC AE data requires the OPC Alarms & Events plug-in).

TOP Server also provides an OPC Classic Historical Data Access (HDA) interface when using the TOP Server Local Historian plug-in for low volume historical data storage up to 10,000 tags (requires at least one communication driver for data collection).

Standards-based connectivity to other OPC data sources

A less obvious but often used OPC application for TOP Server is the optional OPC Client Driver Suite that provides the ability to connect TOP Server to other OPC DA, OPC UA and OPC XML-DA Servers and bring their data into TOP Server. The benefit of doing this is that data from multiple sources is now available in one place, limitations found in some OPC servers can be overcome, and you can serve the data through the following supported non-OPC client interfaces:

DDE – Dynamic Data Exchange
AdvancedDDE
FastDDE
AVEVA Suitelink (formerly Wonderware)
iFix PDB/NIO

About OPC - OPen Connectivity through Open Standards

OPC is a Client / Server technology. One application acts as the server providing data and another application acts as a client requesting and consuming that data.

OPC is a widely accepted industrial communication standard that enables the exchange of data between multi-vendor devices and supervisory and control applications without any proprietary or “closed” restrictions. You can learn more about OPC in our free beginner's Guide to OPC.

An OPC server can communicate data continuously among PLCs on the shop floor, RTUs in the field, HMI stations, DCS systems, and software applications on desktop or server PCs. Even when the hardware and software are from different vendors, OPC standards and compliance-tested products make continuous real-time communication possible.

OPC has led to improved cooperation between technology providers and users alike. OPC has helped automation suppliers provide solutions that are truly open which in turn has given users more choices in their automation applications. This is an exciting time in the industry; interoperability, open solutions, and choices have helped automation professionals around the globe realize the advantages of incorporating OPC into their industrial applications.

Certified solutions from OPC Foundation members offer a wide range of tools for people who prefer "off-the-shelf" products, to mid-level engineers who like the efficiency and scalability of building with a toolkit, to the developer who prefers to build the entire application.