Gateways Get Enhanced with OPC Technology

Moxa has partnered with Microsoft and the OPC Foundation to develop the MC-1121, an industrial-grade IoT gateway with an integrated OPC UA Publisher module. By using Windows 10 IoT and OPC UA Publisher, it provides an effortless way to get data from field side devices securely and reliably to the cloud for analytics and monitoring through a dashboard. The MC-1121 not only gives system integrators a scalable, flexible solution for their projects, but also opens up new opportunities and business models for them. 

Long used as a method of bridging the OT and IT worlds together, OPC UA is critical for the Industrial Internet of Things (IIoT), where many devices and systems that use different protocols need to communicate with one another. Originally, OPC UA worked on a client/server model, but when dealing with hundreds or thousands of devices that all need to be interconnected across multiple sites, a more scalable solution was needed. This led to the adoption of the publisher/subscriber model, which allows for more streamlined communication that offers improved scalability and resilience.

Moxa has been working closely with the OPC Foundation and Microsoft to adopt the functionality of OPC UA. Moxa hardware is being used for Windows 10 IoT testing, and an OPC UA Starter Kit is being assembled as a collaboration between Moxa, Microsoft, and the OPC Foundation. Moxa will also hold a live demo at the 2017 IoT Expo in Taipei to show how easy it is to collect data from various devices and sensors-such as temperature, coolant oil level, and other signals-and send it to Microsoft Azure in the cloud by using the OPC UA Publisher module in Windows 10 IoT.

Moxa's MC-1121 Series IIoT gateways deliver your device data to the cloud with support for Microsoft's OPC UA Publisher module, making it effortless to get your data into Azure IoT Hub. These IIoT gateways include a variety of interfaces to connect to your Ethernet, serial, and I/O devices, and can be used in conjunction with Microsoft Connected Device Studio. This makes them the ideal all-in-one solution for small to medium-scale deployments, or for connecting your large-scale deployment to the cloud with ease.