Installation variants

This chapter describes the different supported installation variants of the TwinCAT OPC UA Gateway. Please note that the complexity of these variants can be extended almost at will. The examples given only represent frequently occurring installation variants.

Gateway and server on the same device

In this scenario, the TwinCAT OPC UA Gateway and the TwinCAT OPC UA Server are installed on the same device. The gateway is configured with the default settings in order to establish a connection with the local TwinCAT OPC UA Server with the following Server URL: opc.tcp://localhost:4840.

From the client's point of view, two scenarios are supported in this case:

• An OPC UA client accesses the lower-level server via the gateway in order to access symbols from the TwinCAT Runtime. The client can be located on the same device or on a device in the network. The communication connection between the client and gateway is OPC UA.
• An OPC COM DA client accesses the lower-level server via the gateway in order to access symbols from the TwinCAT Runtime. The client must be located on the same device. The communication connection between client and gateway is OPC COM DA.

Gateway and server on different devices

In this scenario, the TwinCAT OPC UA Gateway and the TwinCAT OPC UA Server are installed on different devices. The gateway is configured to establish a connection with the remote TwinCAT OPC UA Server by storing its server URL, e.g. opc.tcp://192.168.1.1:4840, in the gateway.

From the client's point of view, two scenarios are supported in this case:

• An OPC UA client accesses the lower-level server via the gateway in order to access symbols from the TwinCAT Runtime. The client can be located on the same device or on a device in the network. The communication connection between the client and gateway is OPC UA.
• An OPC COM DA client accesses the lower-level server via the gateway in order to access symbols from the TwinCAT Runtime. The client must be located on the same device. The communication connection between client and gateway is OPC COM DA.

Connecting the gateway to several servers

You can also connect the TwinCAT OPC UA Gateway to several lower-level TwinCAT OPC UA Servers. The servers can be installed on the same device or on devices in the network. This scenario can of course be extended as required. The following diagram illustrates a scenario in which three TwinCAT OPC UA Servers were connected to the gateway in the network.

From the client's point of view, two scenarios are supported in this case:

• An OPC UA client accesses the lower-level servers via the gateway in order to access symbols from the individual TwinCAT Runtimes. The client can be located on the same device or on a device in the network. The communication connection between the client and gateway is OPC UA.
• An OPC COM DA client accesses the lower-level servers via the gateway in order to access symbols from the TwinCAT Runtimes. The client must be located on the same device. The communication connection between client and gateway is OPC COM DA.