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Reference Manual
vNode OPC DA Client
V1.8

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Index
Introduction ................................................................................................................................................3

Create a new module instance ..........................................................................................................3

Module Configuration ............................................................................................................................5

Connection: ........................................................................................................................................... 6
Keep-alive: ............................................................................................................................................. 6
Tag Configuration .............................................................................................................................. 7
Example Connection for KEPServerEX and TOPServer .................................................. 8
Example Connection to Matrikon OPC Simulation.......................................................... 13

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Introduction
With the vNode OPC DA Module, you can quickly and easily integrate vNode into your
existing OPC DA-based systems. Supports OPC DA 2 & 3, for Windows only. It connects to
local and remote OPC servers so that you can connect to your devices no matter where
they are.

Create a new module instance

The first step when using a module after vNode installation is to instantiate the relevant
module:

Open vNode and navigate to the “Config” menu.

Click on “Modules”, then create a new module. This instance can be given any name
(except names with special characters like ‘.’, ‘/’, etc.), although users are recommended to
name instances in a similar way to the name of the module being instantiated for easy
identification. In this example, the OpcDaClient module has been selected and has also
been named OpcDaClient.

Figure 1: Creating new module instance

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By setting the module type to OpcDaClient, the created instance will automatically
become a OpcDaClient instance. Once saved, the name should appear in bold in the
module list because there are still some unsaved changes.

Figure 2: Setting the instance type

Each instance can also be configured according to the following options:

Pause links while unavailable: When set to Enabled and when this module is receiving
data from other vNode nodes, all links will be paused whilst the module is offline to avoid
data loss. If Disabled, this module will have no effect on links when offline.

• Auto-start: This section controls how the module behaves when the vNode service
is started (which also includes service restarts).
• Enabled: If True, the module will automatically start when the vNode service starts.
Otherwise, the module must be started manually.
• Start delay: When automatic start is Enabled, this setting is used to control how
much delay there should be between starting the vNode service and starting the
module. This value is displayed in milliseconds.
• Auto-restart: This section is used to monitor the status of each module, as well as
to enable automatic restart if the module goes offline.
• Enabled: If True,the module will automatically restart whenever the module goes
offline (except when manually stopped by the user).
• Restart delay: Determines the delay before restarting the module after it has gone
offline.

Note:
Each module has an API and Logger section that will need to be configured separately.
The default settings will be sufficient for this, but users will need to actively open the API
and Logger configuration settings and save the default values to fully apply the
settings. Click here for more information about API and Logger Configuration.

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Module Configuration
Client configuration defines the settings for connections to OPC DA Servers.

Figure 3: Creating a new Client

Figure 4: Client configuration

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Each client requires the following parameters to be configured:

• Subscription batch size: Specifies the size of the subscription batch requested to
the OPC Server. Minimum value: 1 (tags subscribed one by one) Maximum value:
10000 (tags subscribed in batches of 10000 tags). Default 5000 tags per batch.
• Subscription delay: sets the time to wait between subscription batches, in
milliseconds.
• Override timestamps: Override timestamps received from the server. The default
value is No. When enabled, the timestamp of the localhost overrides the
timestamp received from the OPC Server.
• Update mode: Defines the mode used to read data from the OPC
server, SUBSCRIPTION or POLLING. This parameter can be helpful in scenarios
where users running the OPC server do not have the necessary permissions for
sending a callback to the client driver. The default value is set to SUBSCRIPTION.

Connection:
• Host: Hostname/IP address of the target OPC server. Empty means local
• Program ID: Instance name or CLSID of the target OPC server. If the name is
provided, the CLSID will be extracted from the Windows Registry. Enter the CLSID
manually if automatic resolution fails.
• Example: a1a1a1a1-b2b2-c3c3-d4d4-c5c5c5c5c5
• Check server interval: When set to a value > 0, the driver will check the server status
code at the specified rate (in milliseconds). The default value is 60,000ms.
- 1 (RUNNING)
- 2 (FAILED)
- 3 (NOCONFIG)
- 4 (SUSPENDED)
- 5 (TEST)
- 6 (COMM_FAULT)
• Reconnect delay: Specifies the delay before reattempting to open the connection
after a failed attempt, displayed in milliseconds. The default value is 15,000ms.
• Authentication: Defines the authentication mode to
use, DEFAULT or ANONYMOUS. This parameter can be helpful in scenarios where
users running the OPC client do not have the necessary permissions on the target
server. The default value is DEFAULT.

Keep-alive:
• Enabled: Enable or disable keep-alive check on this client.
• Address: OPC item path to use as a keep-alive probe, or empty to disable the keep-
alive check. We recommended using the server timestamp or any other system tag
that is known to change continuously.
• OPC scan rate: Update rate for the keep-alive tag, displayed in milliseconds. The
minimum value is 1,000ms. The default is 5,000ms.

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• Max count: Maximum count of keep-alive events lost before marking the
connection as failed and attempting to re-establish it. The minimum value is 2. The
default is 6.

Tag Configuration
After configuring the Client, users will be able to create and configure any Tags associated
with the data exchanged with the OPC DA Server via the OPC DA Client module, as seen
in the following example:

Figure 5: Configuring OPC Da Client tag sources

Source configuration settings contain the following parameters:

• Enabled: When disabled, tags won’t be updated with the values received from the
device. Instead, they will essentially act as memory tags. When set to Enabled, the
tag value will be continuously updated with the values received from the field
device, or in this case, the database. The default value is set to Disabled.
• Module type: Defines the driver type used to retrieve values from the field. In this
example, OpcDaClient must be selected from the drop-down menu.
If OpcDaClient does not appear in the drop-down menu it means that this driver
has not been installed on this machine yet and must be installed.
• Module name: Select which instance of the OPC DA Client module will provide
data for this tag.

Config:

• Client: The previously configured Client acting as the data source.

Item ID: OPC item path.

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• OPC scan rate: Update rate for this tag, displayed in milliseconds. The minimum
value is 100ms. The default is 5,000ms.

Example Connection for KEPServerEX and TOPServer

The following steps show how to connect to KEPServerEX and TOPServer using the OPC
DA client.

Step 1: Create the module: (Config => Modules => Model => New module)

Figure 6: New Module creation

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Step 2: Provide a name for the module (in this case OPCDAClient01), assign the module
type (in this case OpcDaClient), and save the new configuration.

Figure 7: Configuring a new module as OpcDaClient

Step 3: Configure the Logger and API sections (usually the default values are sufficient).
Save the configuration.

Figure 8: Default log configuration

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Step 4: Create the connection to the OPC DA Server. Each connection is an

independent OPC DA client.

Figure 9: Creating a new OPC DA connection to a server.

Step 5: Configure the OPC DA client to connect to KEPServerEX or TOPServer.

Host: Enter the Hostname/IP address of the target OPC server. Empty means localhost.

Server: Instance name of the target OPC server, also known as Prog ID. For KEPServer6,
the instance name is Kepware.KEPServerEX.V6 and for KEPServerEX 5, the instance
name is Kepware.KEPServerEX.V5. For TOPServer 6, the instance name
is SWToolbox.TOPServer.V6 and for TOPServer 5, the instance name
is SWToolbox.TOPServer.V5.

Save the configuration settings and select "restart module".

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Figure 10: OPC DA client configuration for connecting to KEPServerEX 6 in the same host

Step 6: Create a tag to connect to the OPC Server: Config => Model => New Tag

Figure 11: New tag creation

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Step 7: Configure the tag. All details regarding communication should be configured in
Source entry:

• Source.Enabled: True
• Source.Module Type: OpcDaClient
• Source.Module name: OPCDAClient01 (the module created in previous steps)
• Source.Config.Client: KEPServerEX_local (the connection created in previous steps)
• Source.Config.Address: The tag ID in the OPC server. In this example, a valid tag ID
would be Channel1.Device1.Tag1 since KEPServerEX is running the default
configuration after installation.

Figure 12: New tag configuration

Step 8: The tag should now be available and displaying as good quality in Real-Time
display.

Figure 13: Tag value in real-time display

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Note:

Usually, no changes are required in the DCOM since vNode runs as a service and the
default configuration for KEPServerEX allows connections for local applications running
as System.

Log files for troubleshooting can be downloaded from the WebUI in Diagnostics => This
node => Export logs button.

Example Connection to Matrikon OPC Simulation

The following steps show how to connect to Matrikon OPC simulation using the vNode
OPC DA client:

Step 1: Create the module: (Config => Modules => button to the left of Modules => New
module)

Step 2: Provide a name for the module (in this case OPCDAClient01), assign the type of
module (in this case OpcDaClient) and save the new configuration.

Step 3: Configure the log (usually the default values are sufficient). Save the log
configuration.

Step 4: Create the OPC DA connection to an OPC client and name it MatrikonOPCDA. Each
connection is an independent OPC DA Client.

Step 5: Configure the OPC DA Client to connect to Matrikon.

Host: Enter the Hostname/IP address of the target OPC server. Empty means localhost.

Server: Instance name of the target OPC server, also known as Prog ID. For Matrikon
Simulator, the instance name is “Matrikon.OPC.Simulation.1”.

Save the configuration and select "restart module".

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Figure 14: OPC DA client configuration for connecting to Matrikon OPC in the same host.

Step 6: Create a tag to connect to the OPC sever: Config => Model => New Tag

Figure 15: New tag creation

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Step 7: Configure the tag. All details regarding communication should be configured in
Source entry:

Source.Enabled: True

Source.Module Type: OpcDaClient

Source.Module name: OPCDAClient01 (the module created in previous steps)

Source.Config.Client: MatrikonOPCDA (the connection created in previous steps)

Source.Config.Address: The tag ID in the OPC server. In this example, a valid tag ID would
be “Saw-toothed Waves.Real4” to retrieve simulated data from Matrikon Simulator.

Figure 16: New tag configuration

Step 8: The tag should now be available, displaying as good quality in Real-Time display.

Figure 17: Tag value in real-time

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