Introduction to PI Connector for OPC UA

PI Connector for OPC UA copies contextual and time-series data from OPC UA (OLE for Process Control Unified Architecture) servers to AVEVA Data Archive and PI Asset Framework servers. Static OPC UA variables are mapped to PI Asset Framework elements and attributes, and dynamic variables are converted to PI points. Before starting, users have an option to browse the whole OPC UA address space and export the OPC UA Type Definitions into a .csv file. Consequently, this file can be edited and uploaded back to the connector, so that the list of type definitions and their attributes can be used for constraining the number of OPC UA objects replicated to the PI System.

PI AF templates, elements, their attributes, and PI points are created automatically based on the information obtained from browsing the OPC UA address space. Data from OPC UA variables is read through subscriptions (unsolicited reads). This version of the connector supports the Data Access (DA) and the Historical Access (HA) parts of the OPC UA specification.

PI Connector for OPC UA data flow