OPC Client / OPC Server Architecture
An OPC Architecture refers to a communications infrastructure that includes one or more
OPC clients and
OPC Servers
communicating amongst each other. To keep OPC Client/OPC Server architecture diagrams
easy to read it is conventional to draw data-flow diagrams with data flowing up from
data sources at the bottom to data sinks at the top.
OPC Client: In this example, if the Data-Source had an OPC Client built into it,
the external OPC Client would not be required in the OPC Data Flow Diagram.
Learn more about OPC Clients and Servers.
OPC Communication: Because the OPC Foundation defined several
OPC specifications
to facilitate different types of data, it is important to indicate not only that there is
“OPC Communication” occurring between the OPC Server and the Data Sink. This is important
because the same OPC Server may support more than one type of OPC Specification.