What's new in QuickOPC 2021.2

See also: Versions; Previous version: What's new in QuickOPC 2021.1

Internal version number: 5.61

Key changes:

• OPC UA PubSub security
• Support for OPC UA File Transfer

Targeting

• Minimum supported Windows 10 version is now 1809.

Component Improvements

OPC UA File Transfer

• Added support for OPC UA File Transfer. The developer can choose from several API levels, with increasing level of abstraction. The new EasyUAFileTransferClient specialized client object is an encapsulation of OPC UA methods for file and directory manipulation, and there are also many extension methods to provide more complex functionality, or overloads for different structure of arguments. It is possible to access file data using .NET streams. In addition, an extension of Microsoft's file provider model is available for OPC UA, completely generalizing the file system operations, so that the resulting code can be the same for any type of file system.

OPC UA PubSub

• OPC UA PubSub security (Sign and SignAndEncrypt modes) is now supported. Note: An OPC UA server providing Security Key Service (SKS) is not part of QuickOPC.
• If a network message parsing error occurs, it is now reported through the dataset message event/callback (only the first occurrence on a subscription, before a dataset receive timeout, is reported).

Component Refactorings

OPC UA

• The UACodeBits class has been extended and updated with values for status codes from the newest specification. The XML documentation for each named constant now also includes its numerical value (in decimal and hexadecimal), and the corresponding status code value (in decimal and hexadecimal).

Configuration and Instrumentation

• Enhanced event tracing in OPC UA PubSub.

Tools and Online Services

• Added system networkInformation listInterfaces command to OpcCmd Utility and UADemoPublisher. The command shows information that describes all network interfaces on the local computer.
• Added system networkInformation pingTest command to OpcCmd Utility and UADemoPublisher. The command tests whether a remote computer is accessible over the network.
• Extended !diagnostics sources setSwitchValue and !diagnostics switches setValue commands with options that allow setting values of multiple switches at once, using various filters.
• It is now possible to use comments lines (ignored by the tools) in interactive mode. The comment lines start with "::".

Demo Servers and Publishers

• It is now possible to run the UADemoPublisher in interactive mode, and use the publish command to start publishing.
• The standalone installer now creates an additional shortcut (icon; also in Launcher) for the UADemoPublisher in interactive mode.
• Added --ManualDataSetClock|-mdsc option to UADemoPublisher: Allows to use manually set date&time in simulated datasets, making their contents constant.
• The UADemoPublisher is now also available as ClickOnce installation (for Windows).
• The UADemoPublisher can be configured to use File-based MQTT emulation, which emulates a function of an MQTT broker by storing the messages in form of files in directories of a file system.

OpcCmd Utility

• Added commands to work with OPC UA files, and OPC UA file system (see Using OpcCmd Utility for OPC UA File Transfer).
• The uaSubscriber subscribeDataSet command now collects statistics about number of datasets received (from each combination of publisher Id, writer group and dataset writer), and displays a table with the dataset data counts before the command finishes.

OPC UA PubSub Formatter

• Added a new tool, OPC UA PubSub Formatter (UAPubSubFormatter, Windows desktop application). The tool allows you to visualize the output of formatting OPC UA PubSub network messages (currently, JSON message mapping only).

Examples

OPC UA Client-Server

• Added C# examples for OPC UA File Transfer (using the EasyUAFileTransferClient object, its extensions and OPC UA file streams, and using the file provider model for OPC UA).

OPC UA PubSub

• Added an example showing how to set communication parameters for secure PubSub, and subscribe to signed and encrypted dataset messages.