Noob guide to OPC: how to write a C# Hello World client?

Question

Here is my situation:

We have a software that is used to monitor solar power plants developed. I have to introduce OPC as a new way to acquire data from the physical devi

Answer 1

Providing you with a tutorial... but a little bit of information first:

OPC is everything but open (in an open source way)... the OPC foundation has specified a lot of things to standardize the way automation can communicate - on top of which you could build your own stack. Be warned, the stuf is HUGE(!). So to ease the workload a little, there is a hand full of companies providing you with stacks for different programming languages. Matrikon, Prosys, Unified Automation to name some of them.

However to connect to a demoserver you need to implement a provider and do still need a stack providing you with the basic functionality and to download such a stack, your company must register with the supplier. There is no way round I'm afraid. However there were OpenSource projects: http://www.openopcua.org/ never tried the code though.

BUT just to prove the usefulness check this tutorial http://doc.unifiedautomation.com/

And a book written by the company owner of UA (maybe your company has "Springerlink" access?) http://www.springer.com/computer/information+systems+and+applications/book/978-3-540-68898-3