Happy Saint Patrick’s Day to one and all. May the Guinness from the taps and the data from the OPC servers flow free and untroubled today and everyday. Although today is the day to wear green, over at AutomatedBuildings.com, ‘Go Green’ is the theme for the month. There’s even an article on Going Green with OPC. (I’ll blame the shameless self promotion on the Guinness or three I’ve had. People keep dropping by, and you have to share a wee nip with them on Saint Patrick’s Day. I’m sure it’s one of Murphy’s laws.)
Going Green seems to be a hot topic these days. Maybe it has something to do with all the crazy weather we’ve been having this year. Just last week there was a conference on the topic. If you look at the sponsor list, it’s a who’s-who of OPC users. RioTintoAlcan, Siemens, Suncor, Nexen, Syncrude, Dow, Dell… the list goes on. It would be interesting to see if any of those Green sponsors are using OPC servers like BACnet, Johnson Controls or other building automation protocols as part of their systems.
However you choose to be Green today, I’ll sign off with the obligatory Irish blessing: “MAY YOU LIVE AS LONG AS YOU WANT, AND NEVER WANT AS LONG AS YOU LIVE”
Digital Bond has recently posted an informative podcast that discusses control system security with a couple of industry experts. One of the topics is the MS08-008 vulnerability, vendor reactions and discussions on how these things should be handled. As it turned out the MS08-008 vulnerability wasn’t that big a concern since it required user intervention to exploit, was easily fixed and didn’t directly affect that many products. However there are some good questions raised on if and when a serious control specific vulnerability appears, how vendors should deal with it in terms of disclosure, testing and patching. Of course the biggest challenge control system vendors face is patch management, either validating fixes from Microsoft or implementing and testing fixes of their own. It’s a good listen.
On the topic of reactions and vendor response, let me put on my MatrikonOPC hat for a minute: “Our developers reviewed the security bulletin and determined that none of the MatrikonOPC products made use of the affected components. The Microsoft patches were applied to systems running several MatrikonOPC products to ensure patching did not adversely affect their operation. These tests where run on against the various Microsoft operating systems MatrikonOPC supports. The patch did not adversely affect our products. A notice to that effect was posted on our Support Knowledge Base.” I’ve seen a comment or two out in the websphere that didn’t think that point was made clearly enough.
OK, back into the OPC Exchange blogger hat. My aim with this blog is to provide information on a wide range of OPC topics to all OPC users. I hoped most OPC vendors would have validated the patches against their particular products and posted their findings or comments. In case there were those that didn’t, my post was aimed at providing users with some guidance on how to deal with this particular vulnerability. Was it “OMG-the-sky-is-falling”, “Don’t-Worry-Be-Happy” or somewhere in between? In this case it was somewhere in between: it shouldn’t have affected many systems, but the possibility was still there. My advice was “We tested our stuff and things were OK, but be prudent and patch.”
At the end of the day, if you are using a product from a vendor, that vendor needs to tell you what is right for you. After all, patching systems is sometimes easier said than done, and only they know what their products do under the hood.
Read an interesting post on the Emerson Process Experts blog on the story behind a wireless application on a North Sea oil and gas platform. Of course what caught my attention was the fact that they were using OPC in their architecture. The original press release focuses on the benefits of the wireless applications: cost savings, less wiring, ease of setup etc. All things that are important when implementing something floating out in the middle of the North Sea! Thanks to Jim Cahill for digging a bit more into the background of the project and highlighting the OPC applications. Not only was OPC used in the initial setup and quality monitoring, it also provides real-time updates on the pressure readings. Using the combination of wireless and OPC technologies StatoilHydro reaps big benefits:
“The real benefit is that the annular pressured is monitored continuously by the operations staff rather than twice a day through manual readings. Pressure drop in the annulus might indicate a problem with the well. These continuous measurements provide operators an opportunity to take corrective action much earlier to help avoid well rework and lost production.”
They don’t go into details on the data transfer between the platform and the shore, but I know there are off-shore setups that are making use of OPC here as well. I’ve worked on an architecture that used OPC Tunneller to handle timeouts during periods of spotty network connection. The system also used an OPC HDA data buffer at the platform and History Link to guarantee the delivery of any missed real-time data to the historian on the mainland.
Wireless is the new kid on the industrial automation block, so it gets a lot of attention. Maybe OPC is such a given in so many systems, it just doesn’t get the limelight as much. Oh well, that’s what this blog is for.
Don’t miss the upcoming OPC Technical Seminar in Boston, on March 13th. This will be number two of eight free training seminars this year. I attended the kick-off session in Long Beach, and can tell you it’s a great opportunity.
As always these Seminars are designed to cover the fundamentals of OPC including Servers, Clients, OPC Data Access, OPC Unified Architecture, Best Practices and Compliance. This is a excellent opportunity for end users, system integrators and anyone involved in currently using products or considering using products that involves multivendor interoperability for automation and beyond. Training and demonstrations of the technology facilitating maximizing the use of products and services is one of the key messages of these events.
In addition to learning about OPC, how to use the technology and best practices for implementing, attendees also get to talk with industry experts from the numerous vendor sponsors. Through out the day there are numerous raffles of products and gifts from the sponsoring companies. (At Long Beach there were beach chairs, toques and iPods! I wonder what Boston has to offer?)
The details are as follows: The OPC Boston Seminar will be held at the Boston Marriott Quincy located at 1000 Marriott Drive, Quincy, MA 02169, ph.617-472-1000. Registration Badge Pickup, continental breakfast will start at 8:00 a.m. and the presentations will start at 8:30 a.m. Lunch will be served at 12:00 p.m. and the seminar will conclude about 4:30 p.m. At the completion of the seminar, refreshments will be served until 6:00 p.m. Register for the free event here, and details on the Boston Marriott Quincy hotel are here.
The Wired Science blog has a posting of 10 amazing Chemistry videos. As the post said “Fiery explosions, beautiful reactions, and hilarious music videos are great reasons to be excited about chemistry”. Coincidently, those are great reasons to be excited about OPC as well. Since OPC is usually used in process plants, generally you don’t want to see fiery explosions and out of control reactions. So instead I’ve found an OPC example that is related to each chemistry video. I had to tie OPC into this somehow, didn’t I? I’ve embeded the videos directly into the blog to better tie in the OPC commentary.
10. Thermite vs. Liquid Nitrogen
Can liquid nitrogen freeze molten iron? Apparently not. But liquid nitrogen is a component in the pre-cooling system of helium cryogenic system at the National Synchrotron Radiation Research Center (NSRRC) in Taiwan. It is a fully automatic system using the Siemens SIMATIC 300 PLC, and has an OPC based supervisory system.
9. Gummy Bear Dies a Fiery Death in Potassium Chlorate
Potassium Chlorate can be nasty stuff and is used in making explosives. Strangely manufacturers of high explosives don’t provide a lot of public detail on their control systems. I did find this excerpt from an article CONTROL ran in July 2006:
“… BAE Systems Royal Ordnance North America, Kingsport, Tenn., also uses a mix of PLC/HMI and DCS solutions in the process of manufacturing high explosives. The facility’s most recent installation uses PCS7 controllers (PLCs) from Siemens, which perform both discrete and process functions in the batch chemical manufacture of various grades of explosives. There is also a Foxboro I/A DCS system that controls distillation columns and related systems in the organic acids plant, and some older Siemens and Allen-Bradley PLCs that control switches, valves, and pumps in water, steam, and utility areas.”
OPC products are available for all these systems, so it’s conceivable they COULD be using OPC in here somewhere.
8. German Scientist Spits Flaming Spores
When flammable powders are dispersed in the air, they can explode. Throughout history, that phenomenon has lead to explosions in grain storage facilities (or sugar factories). Of course in our industry the focus is on preventing dust explosions. Part of the process would be monitoring equipment and building environments. With OPC of course.
7. The PCR Song
Filmed in the style of a celebrity benefit, this music video is a commercial for a BioRad thermocycler, which is essentially a DNA copying machine. Currently OPC is probably not used a lot with PCR (polymerase chain reaction) machines or DNA amplification. However OPC is being used in the biomedical field. Nova Biomedical, who provide blood gas/electrolyte analyzers in hospitals, and chemistry analyzers for cell culture and fermentation in biotechnology, have an OPC Server for their BioProfile analyzers.
6. Mysterious Reaction Creates an Undulating Brew
In 1973, this spectacular demonstration was perfected by Thomas Briggs and Warren Rauscher, two amazing high school science teachers. When several clear liquids are combined, the mixture quickly changes colors — back and forth — over and over again. They never say what the two liquids are, so tying this with OPC was a bit of a challenge. The only process I could think of that turns a very dark liquid into a pale yellowish liquid, over and over again, would be what eventually happens when I drink Guinness. Granted the process doesn’t go back the other way, but after a while the floor starts to undulate. OPC and beer are definitely connected.
5. How to Make Stalagmites Instantly
Sodium acetate, the chemical found in many hand warmers, will suddenly crystallize if you prepare a saturated solution and pour it onto a seed crystal. If you were wondering how much sodium acetate was in a particular sample of hand warmer gel, you’d simply stick it in a Gas Chromatograph and historize the results using OPC. As this GC brochure says “Software is available for pre-analysis valve switching, post-analysis special treatment of data, special reports, transfer of data to a spreadsheet, and transfer of data to an OPC server”
4. Elephant Toothpaste
This video shows what fun you can have with concentrated hydrogen peroxide, soap, and a pinch of sodium iodide. A less fun, but much more common use of hydrogen peroxide is for pulp- and paper-bleaching. OPC is being used in many pulp and paper facilities.
3. How to Make Your Own Glow Sticks
OK this one is tough, since there is not a whole lot OPC and chemiluminescent compounds have in common. All I found on glow stick manufacturers is that they all seem to be in China or Taiwan. OPC China is a regional branch of the OPC Foundation. That’s all I got. (The demo is still cool though.)
2. The Inner Life of A Cell
Animator John Liebler gave the world a look at the beautiful ballet of molecules which gives rise to life. Biotechnology is an amazing field, and it too uses OPC. This case study talks about using OPC to connect several systems together including Moore APACS, Wonderware IndustrialSQL and Allen-Bradley.
1. Magnesium Burning Between Bricks of Dry Ice
If you thought that nothing could burn while sandwiched between two bricks of dry ice — think again. Magnesium can combust in an atmosphere of pure carbon dioxide. Magnesium compounds, primarily magnesium oxide, are used mainly as refractory material in furnace linings for producing iron, steel, nonferrous metals, glass and cement. Magnesium oxide and other compounds also are used in agricultural, chemical and construction industries. The steel industry is yet another place OPC is being used, even with old VMS equipment.
Well there you have it. OPC and some very cool chemistry. What more could a chemical engineer ask for?
If you want to see some of the follow up comments or other suggested links, you can visit the original Wired Science blog post here.
Hello from the OPC Foundation Technical Seminar at sunny Long Beach, CA. I’m working. Really. I had meant to blog a little bit all day, but of course things always turn out to be busier than expected. There was a great turn out of end users representing such industries as pharmaceutical, petrochemical, refining, steel manufacturing and many others. There is also a good sampling of system integrators and OPC vendors. The presentations covered the standard gambit of OPC Basics, OPC DA, HDA, A&E and OPC UA, OPC Certification and several talks focusing on OPC architectures and the problems they solve. I’d say the presentation on OPC HDA was the most interesting, but since I gave it, I’m hardly an unbiased source. :) If you were one of the many readers who were there, feel free to leave a comment on which presentation you particularly liked.
Personally I enjoy the chance to talk with end users, and hear how they are using OPC. No matter how many seminars or training courses I attend, I always hear of someone using OPC in a new way. There where the usual queries on how to overcome cross-domain issues, guaranteed data delivery architectures and accessing OPC on non-Windows platforms, but also some new ones. One user was looking for an OPC A&E client to notify management whenever one of the dozen emergency showers in their facility is activated. When one of these things are used, it’s generally not a good scenario. When working as a summer student at a chemical plant, I once had a 5 gallon bottle of fuming Sulfuric Acid explode in my hands. Even when wearing safety goggles, air respirator and industrial work cloths, I was glad the emergency chemical shower was only steps away. I survived. My gloves didn’t.
Accidents can happen and OPC be used to monitor and notify users when they do. Better yet, OPC is a key component in any preventative maintenance system, which can help to avoid accidents in the first place. Speaking of accidents, I wonder if we will ever find out what really happened at FPL this week. Anyone out there hear the real story?
This post really doesn’t have anything to do with OPC, but there is a thread of the same name going on Control.com that is just too funny. It actually starts out as a serious question from a guy who’s had the air let out of his tires 11 times, and is looking for advice on motion detection technology. The topics range from the legalities of electric fence devices, to human nature to a cockatoo that wanted some not-so-fresh air. Who said techies can’t be funny?
I wonder if OPC could be used in this case. My last rental car would display the tire pressure on the dash, and even warned when they where too low. Handy feature since the left rear tire did have a slow leak. I’m sure it’s possible to write an OPC server for the on-board computer. (I know MatrikonOPC has written servers to pull real-time maintenance data off Detroit Diesel, Caterpillar and Komatsu engines.) Then all you would need is a smart OPC client, like the MatrikonOPC Messenger to text you when the tire pressure went out of tolerance. Bob’s your uncle and you got the guy… or cockatoo. Of course a motion sensitive wireless webcam would work too, but wouldn’t be nearly as much fun.
Speaking of fun, just a reminder of the OPC Seminar in Long Beach, February 27th. I’m looking forward to chatting with a few of you over ‘refreshments’ after the seminar.
May customers are asking us about the recent Microsoft Security Bulletin MS08-008 regarding the vulnerability with OLE Automation. Looking at things, it doesn’t look like this should have any bearing on OPC Servers since they use the custom interface, and the vulnerability is with OLE Automation. Of course it is still a very good idea to patch your systems since the consequences can be quite serious and there are some OPC clients out there that make use of OLE Automation.
As Dale pointed out in a recent post the ‘O’ in OPC originally stood for OLE for Process Control. Even in the beginning the name wasn’t really correct since the OPC specifications (DA, HDA and A&E) are technically based on COM. Since Component Object Model (COM) and Object Linking and Embedding (OLE) are very closely related, it’s easy for confusion to set in. It doesn’t help matters that Microsoft introduced the term OLE first. As the scope expanded Microsoft realized OLE didn’t fully fit the bill, so they created a new binary compatible, language independent, extremely lightweight protocol called COM. In COM, software components implement their services as one or more COM objects. Every object implements one or more interfaces, each of which exports a number of methods. COM components communicate by invoking these methods. OLE is a set of standard COM interfaces that enable users to create compound document by linking and embedding objects (components) into container applications, hence the name OLE. In other words COM is a specification while OLE is a particular implementation of this specification.
When reading the FAQ notes on the MS08-008 vulnerability, it appears to be confined to applications developed using the Visual Basic 6 platform and the oleaut32.dll (the workarounds in particular mentioned instantiating the Microsoft Forms 2.0 ImageActiveX Control in Internet Explorer). Since OPC Servers are developed using the custom COM specification, this shouldn’t apply to them. Although most industrially robust OPC clients will be developed on COM, it is possible to develop OPC Client applications using the Automation interfaces, by using the opcdaauto.dll from the OPC Foundation (or other vendors). I’m sure most OPC vendors will be posting details on their products. You can find the MatrikonOPC details here.
The MS08-008 vulnerability deals with a client-side remote code-execution vulnerability that affects Object Linking and Embedding (OLE) automation when handling specially crafted script requests. A successful exploit will result in the execution of arbitrary attacker-supplied code in the context of the currently logged in user. Typically this would be a web-based attack scenario, where an attacker could host a Web site that contains a Web page that is used to exploit this vulnerability. An attacker would have to persuade users to visit the Web site, typically by getting them to click a link in an e-mail message or Instant Messenger message that takes users to the attacker’s Web site. I suppose if the vulnerability can be exploited using a specially crafted web page, it stands to reason someone could create a devious OPC client that did the same thing, (or other nasty stuff for that matter). This is yet another reason to only install or use software from a known and trusted OPC vendor.
We’ll still be following this one closely to see what else might develop, but in the meantime I would say apply the patch and keep enjoying your OPC connectivity.
UPDATE: Seems my clarifications might have been confusing to some. If so, my apologies. To be clear: the vulnerability would not directly affect the OPC Server interfaces, but could exist in other parts of a server package like GUIs or configuration software. It would also be present in OPC clients or tools developed on VB 6.0 or use the oleaut32.dll. The most prudent course of action is patch your system. Digital Bond has done some more ground work that is definitely worth a read, and details a work around until you get things patched.
Since OPC is used in many countries and across all industries I follow a slew of RSS feeds to keep tabs on things. So often times when someone has a question on industry trends they’ll ask me if I’ve heard anything. Just the other day one of our sales guys mentioned that there seemed to be a lot of interest in the OPC Server for DNP 3.0 and the OPC Server for IEC 60870, and was wondering what might be driving it.
I’ve posted on OPC and DNP before, but in a nutshell they are both open, standards-based protocols used in for telemetry SCADA architectures. They are popular in the electrical industry, but are also used for water utilities, wastewater and sewage treatment. There are a few news stories on these industries floating about:
State hopes to boost energy efficiency at water, sewage treatment plants – “if communities cut energy use at their plants, they could save big money on their electric bills and help the environment at the same time.” In order to optimize anything, you first need to have the data. OPC definitely helps with that.
House panel advances bill to study, manage Idaho aquifers – Money to study, monitor and develop plans for future management of 10 aquifers scattered across the state. The telemetry-based SCADA OPC servers where designed for exactly these types of architectures.
These all deal with projects that could make use of OPC and DNP 3.0 and/or IEC 60870. Anyone else out there have any ideas why the interest? Is there some recent or pending legislation that would have an impact on monitoring the utilities sector?
The Digital Bond blog has more details on the netDDE Share vulnerability announced by US CERT. It’s not really shocking news that netDDE is lacking in the security department, but the vulnerability can lead to very serious consequences if the wildcard share is used. As Dale said in his posting, a lot of commercial products use netDDE shares and people are using the wildcard share. I’ve posted in the past on OPC vs DDE and security was one of the key items. This announcement just adds more weight to the argument.
As much as many people would like DDE to go away, there are many products out there that support it. Some have DDE as the only available third party interface. So what are users supposed to do? One option is to use DDE for the local connection (thus avoiding the use of the vulnerable netDDE shares), and use OPC for the remote connections. There are OPC Server/DDE Client and OPC Client/DDE Server products available for both ends of the architecture. By disabling netDDE completely and properly configuring DCOM you have a much more secure system.
For those using netDDE out there today, why not OPC? Is it the simplicity of setting up DDE? The trade off for security outweights the headaches of DCOM? Other reasons?
Happy Saint Patrick’s Day to one and all. May the Guinness from the taps and the data from the OPC servers flow free and untroubled today and everyday. Although today is the day to wear green, over at AutomatedBuildings.com, ‘Go Green’ is the theme for the month. There’s even an article on Going Green with OPC. (I’ll blame the shameless self promotion on the Guinness or three I’ve had. People keep dropping by, and you have to share a wee nip with them on Saint Patrick’s Day. I’m sure it’s one of Murphy’s laws.)
