Use an OPC AE Server

OPC (OLE for Process Control) is a set of communication standards maintained by the OPC Foundation for the industrial automation industry. OPC provides a common platform for applications to share data from typically disparate sources, such as PLCs and databases, without the need to comprehend native protocols.

The OPC Alarms and Events (OPC AE) specification is similar to the original OPC Data Access specification, except that it addresses alarm and event data instead of real-time process control data. Plant SCADA supports a runtime OPC AE Server that supports the OPC AE interface specifications.

Note: To view Plant SCADA alarm information such as areas and privileges via OPC AE, your OPC AE client needs to support the capability to log on as specific user. This will implement the "IOpcSecurityPrivate" interface.

To get started, you need to register an OPC AE Server on a computer running a Plant SCADA alarm server. This is achieved via the General Options page of the Plant SCADA Setup Wizard (see Setup Wizard - General Options Setup).

You can then use a third-party OPC client application, such as Matrikon, to access your system and view alarm and event data. See the topic Use a Third-party OPC Client to Access Alarm Server Data for configuration details.

Note: The OPC AE Server does not support DCOM for remote communications. It is recommended that you run any connecting OPC client applications on the computer that is registered as the OPC AE Server.