OPC-UA-Input node

Purpose

Use the OPC-UA-Input node to connect IBM® Integration Bus applications to an OPC UA Server. The OPC-UA-Input node periodically requests information from the OPC UA Server to check whether the defined set of tags have new data.

The OPC-UA-Input node is contained within the Manufacturing drawer of the message flow palette, and is represented in the IBM Integration Toolkit by the following image:

OPC-UA-Input node

Using the OPC-UA-Input node in a message flow

In the Properties view, specify the OPC UA Server that you want to connect to, the tags for which you want to receive data, and the rate at which you want to check for new data.

For any tags that you add to the Tags property, the node outputs data in an XML format. To access or update the values under TagData, you must address it with its namespace. For more information, see XML schema.

You can route or transform this data by using the nodes that are in the IBM Integration Toolkit palette. For example, you can publish the data by using an MQTTPublish node, and then subscribe to the data by using an MQTTSubscribe node, see MQTTPublish node and MQTTSubscribe node.

Note: This node has an automatic retry mechanism. The retry mechanism starts at 5 seconds and then tries again by using a geometric progression with the common ratio of 2; that is, 5, 10, 20, 40, and so on.

Configuring the OPC-UA-Input node

Configure the OPC-UA-Input node by modifying the properties.

All mandatory properties for which you must enter a value (properties that do not have a default value defined) are marked with an asterisk in the user interface.

To discover your tags, enter your server name then click Discovery or add them manually.

Restriction: Do not specify tag containers or folders, because these elements result in no data in the TagData output.

Security

To configure keystores, truststores, passwords, and certificates to enable SSL communication, you can set up a public key infrastructure (PKI) at integration node level, see Setting up a public key infrastructure in the IBM Integration Bus documentation.

Terminals and properties

The OPC-UA-Input node terminals are described in the following table.

Terminal	Description
Failure	The output terminal to which a message is routed if an error occurs during processing.
Out	The output terminal to which any successful tag readings are sent.
Catch	The output terminal to which the message is routed if an exception is thrown downstream and caught by this node. Exceptions are caught only if this terminal is attached.

The following tables describe the node properties. The column headed M indicates whether the property is mandatory (a mandatory property is marked with an asterisk if you must enter a value when no default is defined); the column headed C indicates whether the property is configurable (you can change the value when you add the message flow to the broker archive (BAR) file to deploy it).

The Description properties for the OPC-UA-Input node are described in the following table.

Property	M	C	Default	Description
Node name	Yes	No	The node type, OPC-UA-Input.	The name of the node.
Short description	No	No		A brief description of the node.
Long description	No	No		Text that describes the purpose of the node in the message flow.

The Basic properties for the OPC-UA-Input node are described in the following table.

Property	M	C	Default	Description
Server	Yes	Yes		The TCP/IP connection for the destination application, in the form opc.tcp://`host_name`:`port`/`UAServer_name`, where `host_name` is the name of the host, `port` is the number of the port, and `UAServer_name` is the name of the OPC UA Server. Note: You must use the exact discovery endpoint URL as specified on the OPC UA Server.
Tags	Yes	Yes		The browse paths of the tags that contain the data that you want to receive. You can add and delete tag values. You can discover tags from your OPC UA Server. For more information, see Selecting tags to use in your message flows. You can add multiple tags by using a comma separated list of values.
Update rate (ms)	Yes	Yes	5000	The interval (in milliseconds) at which the OPC UA Server is polled for refreshed TagData. If you enter a rate of less than 50, the value defaults to 50. If the minimum update rate for your server is longer, that rate takes precedence.

Property

M

C

Default

Description

Server

Yes

The TCP/IP connection for the destination application, in the form opc.tcp://host_name:port/UAServer_name, where host_name is the name of the host, port is the number of the port, and UAServer_name is the name of the OPC UA Server.

Note: You must use the exact discovery endpoint URL as specified on the OPC UA Server.

Tags

Yes

The browse paths of the tags that contain the data that you want to receive. You can add and delete tag values.

You can discover tags from your OPC UA Server. For more information, see Selecting tags to use in your message flows.

You can add multiple tags by using a comma separated list of values.

Update rate (ms)

Yes

5000

The interval (in milliseconds) at which the OPC UA Server is polled for refreshed TagData. If you enter a rate of less than 50, the value defaults to 50. If the minimum update rate for your server is longer, that rate takes precedence.

The Security properties for the OPC-UA-Input node are described in the following table.

Property	M	C	Default	Description
SSL client authentication key alias	No	Yes		This property specifies an SSL authentication alias for the client-side of an HTTP connection. SSL client authentication key alias must be set to a valid key in the keystore.
Message security	No	Yes	None	The type of message security. The following values are available: None Sign Sign And Encrypt
Security policy	No	Yes	None	The name of the security policy. The following values are available: None BASIC128RSA15
Message encoding	No	Yes	Binary	The type of message encoding. The following value is available: Binary