Anyone who’s dealt with compliancy issues between an OPC server and an OPC client will have heard the statement…  “There is a standardized Compliancy Test Tool for the OPC Servers, but there is nothing to test the OPC Clients”.   Finally a better answer.   As part of continuing to raise the bar on OPC Interoperability testing the OPC Foundation has recently released the OPC Analyzer for testing OPC Client behavior.   (You might have read about it on OPCconnect.com.   Mike’s always on top of the latest OPC Foundation webpage updates).

The tool was first unveiled at the last OPC Interoperability event in Nuremberg.   Overall a very cool little application, with the ability to inject error conditions from the server in order to see how the client handles things.  (I ran into a few quirks when playing around with it, but I guess that is to be expected with any 1.0 release.   The more users that bang on a tool, the better it gets)

Before, if a user suspected an OPC client issue, they would compare the application to the behavior of a trusted OPC client, or figure out what could be wrong based on an interface log (like the one generated by the OPC Sniffer freeware test tool).   It is very nice to see a standardized OPC client test tool from the OPC Foundation.

As OPC continues to make in roads into enterprise level solutions like asset management, or business system integration,  the demand for more seamless client-server interoperability will increase as well.    It’s good to know the new compliance efforts include existing OPC, as well as upcoming OPC UA products.