OPC UA SDKs and Toolkits

Note on OPC Foundation membership

Overview of Available SDKs and Toolkits

SDK and Toolkit Suppliers

Note on OPC Foundation membership

OPC Foundation Corporate Membership is strongly advised for anyone serious about OPC UA client or server development.

There are multiple reasons for this:

• The UA specification documents are only available to OPC Foundation members
• OPC Foundation offers a UA SDK - free to members - which you will want access to even if you decide to purchase a commercial SDK or toolkit in addition
• Compliance and marketing: OPC UA products will be far more saleable if they have been validated by OPC Foundation's compliance and certification process

So, while membership may have been considered optional for developers using earlier OPC specifications, if is strongly recommended for UA development.

Overview of Available SDKs and Toolkits

The following table gives an overview of OPC UA toolkit suppliers.

		Toolkit Types			Platform / Language
Supplier		Client	Server		C / C++	Java	.NET		Notes
OPC Foundation					*	*			* UA stack plus sample code only - not a full SDK. See note below.
Prosys
Softing									Planned availability: 2009-Q4
Unified Automation

SDK and Toolkit Suppliers

OPC Foundation

UA SDK

The OPC Foundation UA SDK is a collection of libraries and applications that facilitate the development of UA applications. The UA SDK supports 2 different development environments: .NET and C/C++. A Java version is in beta and is distributed as a separate package.

Working binaries and platform support are provided only for Windows and .NET. Vendors such as Unified Automation can offer expertise in porting to other platforms including Linux and embedded RTOSes.

Note: OPC Foundation supplies a full UA SDK for .NET only. Support for C/C++ and Java is in the form of a stack and sample code. While a stack provides the basic communications infrastructure, an SDK adds significant application layer libraries and classes to speed up application development. UA developers targeting platforms other than .NET are recommended to look to one of the third-party vendors listed on this page.

Prosys

UA Java SDKs

updated Prosys has developed an OPC UA Java SDK, now available as a full release version. It offers both client and client/server SDKs in source and binary editions. An evaluation version is available.

Prosys has been a major contributor to the OPC Foundation UA Java stack.

C/C++ SDKs

Prosys is a reseller for the Unified Automation toolkits.

Softing

OPC Toolbox Unified Architecture

Softing's OPC Toolbox UA, planned to ship 2009-Q4, is a family of toolkits for the development of OPC UA clients and servers for Windows, Linux, VxWorks and more platforms. It will include complete C++ and .NET class libraries with implementation samples.

Unified Automation

Client SDKs

Unified Automation offers a C++ based OPC UA Client API, with or without source code.

Server SDKs

Several cross-platform Server SDK choices are available from Unified Automation:

C++ based OPC UA Server SDK (Professional)

All basic UA services, plus support for Alarms & Conditions, History and Programs

C++ based OPC UA Server SDK (Basic)

All basic UA services only; no support for Alarms & Conditions, History and Programs

ANSI C based OPC UA Server SDK

Optimized for use in embedded devices

Java SDKs

Unified Automation is a reseller for the Prosys toolkits.