Red lion OPCWorx Proxy vs OPC UA between graphite's

[ERCfarcontrol]

What is the difference between the OPCWorx Proxy (which seems to be legacy), and the OPC UA Server? Both can be used to share data between redlion devices, but the OPC UA seems to be a current industry standard for directly sharing data amongst devices and scadas without any other software. The OPC UA nodes are discovered from the device over the network similar to a BACnet network, where as the OPCWorx tags come from selecting the crimson file of the device you want to communicate to. Why must you discover the nodes over the network?

I've been developing hmi's using 15" graphites at the machine level for quite some time and I am now developing a supervisory hmi using a 15" graphite. What direction would I want to go in for this? My end goal is to have an "off the shelf" product.

My concern is when using OPC UA is the client looking for the OPC nodes from an exact device with some kind of special identifier like a Mac address ALONG WITH it's specified ip address? Or is it just looking for the OPC nodes at it's specified ip address?

I guess what might answer my question is, can you replace a broken HMI with a new one of the same model with the same configuration preloaded, and be able to do it without needing a PC/crimson. Or would you need to use crimson to rediscover the nodes from the new "unique" HMI even though the configuration is the same?

Hope that makes sense. Maybe I'm overthinking this.

 

[AlfredoQuintero]

Hello ERCfarcontrol:
My undestanding is that OPCWorx Proxy is a tool for OPC DA servers. OPC DA is a legacy standard nowadays and is gradually being substituded by OPC UA. For your OPC DA server to communicate with an OPC UA client you will need a wrapper application. Normally this client application will run on the OPC DA side. There are many. The one I am most familiar with is Softing's dataFEED OPC Suite, which has an OPC Organaizer optional functionality, which will be the local OPC DA client on the PC hosting the OPC DA server, and will map the OPC DA address space into an equivalent OPCUA server address space which the OPC UA client can access. (Equivalent meaning all the OPC DA items will have a corresponding OPC UA nodes, that is variables).
In summary, this application is a translator between OPC DA and OPC UA, but it is very transparent and easy to use. It will set you back some US$ 600 or so per Windows work station.