OPC-DA connection help

Good morning,

I am taking my first foray into Ignition, unfortunately, the first project is a large one.

We have offshore assets that have established control networks and are trying to integrate Ignition to provide some visualization.

Currently, the site where I am trying to setup a connection has a HoneyWell Experion PKS server.
Browsing on the Experion, I see where to setup OPC integrations but I am not quite sure how to proceed.

When I plug the server address into the OPC-DA connection, I don't find any results.

Any assistance in getting this connection setup will be appreciate, I am flying blind here.

If the Ignition gateway is not on the same server as the OPC-DA server then you're going to run into a load of trouble trying to make a DA connection. In my limited experience that requires disabling of Windows security features - probably something you don't want.

Various companies offer OPC tunnelling solutions. (Matrikon springs to mind.) The article below may help.

Ignition also has an additional module. I've integrated with this to DCS interfaces in the past.

What does your overall architecture look like?

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Cool. I didn't know about that.

Yeah we've coupled it with an edge gateway to be the remote tag provider and viola, an all IA solution.

There are four Experion PKS servers with full redundancy, network switches and backbones.
Its completely isolated - we are trying to stick a computer with Ignition on the same network and pull some tags off of it to provide visuals to corporate.
Not sure the best way to accomplish this.

I wouldn't expect this to be sufficient.

Something will have to be installed on those PKS servers.

Unless it's a new enough version of PKS to have OPC UA support (some Google-fu suggests R510 or later) you will likely need a UA tunneler on those servers.

I suppose it's possible to get OPC Classic working... but yikes. Unless it just works in the current configuration the least disruptive thing to do would be to install a UA tunneler instead of mess around with security settings and DCOM.

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Can you lead me to some documentation on a UA tunneler?
Trying to find the best way to bring tag data out of the Experion without disruption.
Unfamiliar with options available to me, new to Ignition.

I'd recommend UaGateway from Unified Automation: UaGateway - Unified Automation

Another inexplicably more popular option is Matrikon's OPC UA tunneler: https://www.matrikonopc.com/opc-ua/products/opc-ua-tunneller.aspx

I can only guess Matrikon is more popular simply because the US market doesn't know any better / know about Unified Automation.

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Is there a better way that I am missing to bring the tags from the preexisting Experion PKS into the Ignition Gateway? Or do you recommend the UA tunneler?

I don't know anything about Experion PKS other than it has an OPC server, which I only learned since this thread started.

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I was able to figure this out.
I domain joined the Ignition gateway to the control system domain.
Able to browse OPC devices. It was a security thing.

I ended up resolving this without the use of an OPC tunneller.
I've seen a few questions about OPC-DA and DCOM issues.

What resolved it for me -
Downloaded OPC core components from OPC foundation.
Setup the DCOM settings as per Ignitions guide.
https://support.inductiveautomation.com/hc/en-us/articles/360047134152-Setting-up-and-troubleshooting-OPC-COM-connections)
Checked my target OPC server to see what account was running OPC services.
Created a local Windows account on my Ignition gateway computer using the same credentials.
Run OPCEnum service as this new local account - ensuring that it matches your target remote computers account.

***I also have a domain account with the same username and password, but I am not sure this is necessary.

I can now browse my devices and receive asynchronous updates from both an OPC explorer and my Ignition gateway.
Thanks for the helpful hints and documentation.

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