About OPC Standards and Technologies

What is OPC?

OPC is a worldwide standard of application interface in industrial automation software and the enterprise systems that support industry. OPC standards are provided in form of various specifications. The OPC standard documents are available to members of OPC Foundation only, but the OPC technology itself can be used by anybody without any royalty charges to OPC Foundation.

This page attempts to provide explanation of commonly used OPC terms.

What is an OPC Server?

OPC Server is a software application which provides industrial real-time data from PLCs, DCSs, and other control devices to HMIs and other OPC clients. OPC Labs develops standard OPC based servers using our own toolkit classes, or with the use of ICONICS OPC ToolWorX.

What is an OPC Client?

OPC client is OPC data consumer. It is typically a visualization or database application which present or uses the OPC data provided by OPC servers. With the use of QuickOPC you can easily enhance any non-OPC application to become an OPC client and connect it to a broad family of existing OPC servers.