compatibility issues between system platform v23 and kepware

Hi Jakob Agustsson  , I have done the exact above but with a slight change, I moved from OPC DA to OPC UA ( which Kepware and SP 23 support at no additional cost ) and problem solved. The issue you have stated is not Kepware or AVEVA but it's a Microsoft issue no longer supporting OPC DA without compromising on security

Hi Jakob Agustsson  , I have done the exact above but with a slight change, I moved from OPC DA to OPC UA ( which Kepware and SP 23 support at no additional cost ) and problem solved. The issue you have stated is not Kepware or AVEVA but it's a Microsoft issue no longer supporting OPC DA without compromising on security

ok, thank you!

did you start by using the ddesuitelink object? How did the issues look?

I am referring to a problem related to the ddsuitelink object:

• An issue has been observed with multiple versions of KEPServerEX / ThingWorx Kepware Server when interacting with Aveva System Platform 2023 when using the FastDDE/SuiteLink interface
  • The issue is being investigated 
  • At this time Aveva recommends utilizing OPC UA for connecting to the Kepware OPC UA interface

There was bad OPC quality data when the OPC in Kepware worked fine, but i tried a separate OPC client and still didnt work, figured this is not an AVEVA issue

ok I am having problems which i think has to do with suitelink connections, I am going to test with opc ua instead. 

RAINER CARLTON DSOUZA  hi again, I configured one instance of opcclient to connect to kepware, it works fine, but how do I know if i am using opc da or ua, I assumed I should put the path from the OPC UA server (on the screenshot below .) somewhere in the instance settings.

This works if I put this data in the opcclient instance , (screenshot below:)

Is this configured as OPC UA connection?

Hi Jakob Agustsson  you need to first add OPC UA connection in Operations Management console 

Please see the link below for detailed instructions

https://docs.aveva.com/bundle/sp-appserver/page/689813.html

I would love to help you further but I need time and currently super busy

Hi Jakob,
The Application Server OPC Client object does not support OPC UA (yet) so I would say that in that case you are using OPC DA connecting to your Kepware server.
To have System Platform connect to a OPC UA Server you need to involve the OI Gateway using a OPC UA Connection node.

And then use a communication object (preferably the Suitelink object or the new PCS connection protocol (New in 2023).

OPC UA requires some additional configuration that you will not find in the OPC Object

And enables new features other than DA (Data Access) such as Methods.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5Yo7tFE42Jc

As you and Rainer mention it is advised to move away from OPC DA over network due to the Microsoft DCOM Hardening initiative witch in some cases makes it impossible to communicate with a 3rd party OPC DA Server over network. A workaround could be to install OI Gateway locally on your OPC DA server node and use Suitelink/PCS to manage the node to node communication.

(PCS removes the need of a Application Server communication object (OPC/Suitelink_DDE), but requires some additional configuration if you have not implemented it before).

Hi Richard thank you for your response,

I am trying to figure out what issues there have been with the suitelink client and kepware this notification is published on their webpage

• An issue has been observed with multiple versions of KEPServerEX / ThingWorx Kepware Server when interacting with Aveva System Platform 2023 when using the FastDDE/SuiteLink interface
  • The issue is being investigated

I was hoping some of the good people on this forum have also had issues with the same.

I am in a nightmare situation with a system for our client that puts items on quarantine randomly as it seems, but I have at least figured out it happens as soon as I deploy the suitelink connections, I can run appengines with deployed instances, when I exclude the Suitelinkconections.

I then rambled upon this notification from kepware about issues.  Yesterday I was planning on changing to the opcclient and test it that way, but now after explanation from you and Ranier it seems that is also a problem.

The newest hope is deactivating this option in the kepware settings that I also just noticed, screenshot

Outch, yes, I recall you mentioning this issue in another post. Seems to be a rough problem.
I don't have any quick ideas on this exact issue since I'm not using Kepware in any of our active installations at the moment. But we are planning an upgrade for a customer to 2023 R2 SP1 that includes Kepware so it is of course of interest to understand this issue.

But I do recall some issues that a college of mine had where he was unable to deploy to the same node as the Omniserver driver, if the driver service was turned off it worked, when started, it crashed the entire server (SMC full of Errors) and we could not get it running until server was rebooted (sometimes several reboots was required).

The solution was to move the Omniserver to a client node without any Engines deployed.
Both of these servers (Kepware and Omniserver) has a OPC UA interface exposed, but in Omniserver was not possible to disable the OPC UA part, so perhaps this could be tried, Also, I would try to turn off Suitelink if that is possible too. (to see if it makes a difference).

Is the Kepware server installed on a node that has Bootstrap and are you deploying any platform to the machine? when you say that you can not deploy Suitelink instances, are those deployed to a stand alone object server, or is it the same node as where Kepware is running?

Is the Kepware server installed on a node that has Bootstrap and are you deploying any platform to the machine? when you say that you can not deploy Suitelink instances, are those deployed to a stand alone object server, or is it the same node as where Kepware is running?

I have tried several different scenarios but now the kepware server is on the same node as the appengine hosting the suitelink connections. 

I can deploy the suitelink instances, but I get items going on quarantine one by one until everything is in quarantine.

I disabled the The Dcom config settings on the screenshot from last post, I have had my test connections running for at least 3 hours now which is a record.  So i am hoping that tomorrow when i return to work it is still running. 

will keep you posted, and thank you!

Hi,

I'm aware of only one issue, which is related to SuiteLink interoperability which seems to have appeared first with the 2023 versions. AVEVA, PTC, and Software Toolbox teams have collaborated to identify and solve this issue, which turned out to be caused by the Logger. My understanding is that the Kepware binaries are being updated to include a fix for this issue.

With respect to classic OPC, Microsoft did upset all things DCOM a while back but my understanding is that, once all Microsoft updates are applied, their changes should go mostly unnoiced. But if you have only the first half of their series of updates, a lot of things will be broken. That said, remote OPC connections have always been challenging and I suspect that it will just get more difficult with time. AVEVA's communication drivers have begun deprecating OPC as a common component. It will, however, remain supported by OI Gateway for the long term.