Using OPC XML-DA with LabVIEW

Updated Jan 3, 2018

Reported In

Software

  • OPC Servers 2013
  • LabVIEW Full
  • LabVIEW Base
  • LabVIEW 2017 OPC UA Toolkit
  • LabVIEW Datalogging and Supervisory Control Module

Issue Details

I have a PLC or an OPC Server which uses the OPC XML-DA standard, and would like to connect to it using I/O Servers in LabVIEW Datalogging and Supervisory Control Module (DSC) or some other method such as DataSockets. However, I can't seem to find the tags in my OPC XML-DA Server in LabVIEW DSC or DataSockets.

How can I use my OPC XML-DA tags in LabVIEW?

Solution

LabVIEW and LabVIEW DSC do not at this time provide native OPC XML-DA support. Since OPC XML-DA is not natively supported, a wrapper is required to convert the OPC XML-DA communication to one of the supported standards for LabVIEW to interpret.

NI OPC Servers provides a OPC XML-DA Driver (as of NI OPC Servers 2013) to communicate with third-party OPC XML-DA servers, and converts communication to the supported OPC DA standard. Documentation for this driver can be found in the NI OPC Servers Driver Help.

Once the tags are loaded into NI OPC Servers, LabVIEW should be able to access the tags using an OPC Client I/O Server or a DataSocket Client.

Additional Information

Currently, LabVIEW, LabVIEW DSC, and LabVIEW OPC UA Toolkit only provide direct support for the following OPC Foundation Standards:
  • OPC DA (Data Access)
  • OPC UA (Unified Architecture) 

As of LabVIEW 2017, OPC UA support has been moved from LabVIEW DSC to the LabVIEW OPC UA Toolkit.

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