We have released an update for Enterprise Alert 9 (version 9.3) that revolutionizes our OPC connector and also includes some bug fixes. Read all the details in this article.

Previous OPC connector configuration

Until now, the OPC connector was configured via the Web Portal. In particular, all OPC nodes on the OPC server that were to be monitored for value changes had to be manually entered here. In larger environments, this was a very tedious, redundant and also error-prone configuration task.

New and intelligent OPC connector configuration

We have therefore rebuilt the configuration so that it can be performed and better automated via a new database API. The new OPC connector configuration API consists of 3 new database tables in addition to stored procedures:

• OpcUaNodes: contains the OPC nodes that are subscribed to in the OPC server for value changes.
• OpcUaObjects contains OPC objects whose defined properties are synchronized as nodes to OpcUaNodes.
• OpcUaObjectDefaultProperties: defines properties (nodes) of OPC object types that are synchronized for concrete objects in OpcUaObjects as nodes from OpcUaNodes.

The basic idea behind the new architecture is to not having to enter each node of an object type/machine to be queried individually.

For example, if the temperature and fan speed of an air conditioning system is to be monitored for a building with 200 air conditioning units, this previously meant configuring 400 nodes.
With the new configuration, instead, the “schema” of the “air conditioning” object is created only once in OpcUaObjectDefaultProperties and then the 200 units are registered via a stored procedure in OpcUaObjects. From there the connector synchronizes the “single components” (nodes) into the table OpcUaNodes and registers itself at the OPC server for corresponding value changes.

We will gladly provide details about this procedure on request.

Backward compatibility and configuration adoption

The previous configuration was done via the Web Portal, which saved the entered nodes in the table OPCSubscriptionParameter.

All nodes existing there are automatically transferred to the new table OpcUaNodes during the update so that there is no loss of functionality. After the update, however, the configuration is only possible via the new database interface.

Bug Fixes

Release 9.3 also includes numerous bug fixes:

• [Fixed] Phone number is not displayed for multi-team schedules in Who is on call.
• [Fixed] Error displaying alert policies when target team was deleted
• [Fixed] Message journal was not displayed if invalid XML was included
• [Fixed] Flood suppression could not be disabled if workflow did not require manual acknowledgement
• [Fixed] On-call calendar tile was orange although the schedule was valid
• [Fixed] Renaming of REST API sources was not reflected in alerting policies
• [Fixed] Renaming of REST API sources made alerting policies unusable
• [Fixed] Searching for times in the system log was reset on navigate back
• [Fixed] Callout to a team outside of on-call hours caused the portal to hang
• [Fixed] Server error when ADFS authentication was enabled in web.config
• [Fixed] Exchange module re-connection routine was not successful in certain circumstances