In a previous post on OPC on this blog I introduced some basics of OPC. Now we’ll take look at some performance characteristics of OPC-UA. Performance depends both on the used OPC server and the client, of course. But there are general tips to improve performance.
- to get maximum performance use OPC without security
OPC message signing and encryption adds overhead. Turn off security for maximum performance if your use case allows to use OPC without security.
- bulk reads increase performance
Bulk reads
A bulk read call reads multiple variables at once, which reduces communication overhead between client and server.
Here’s a code example using Eclipse Milo, an open-source OPC-UA stack implementation for the Java VM.
final String endpointUrl = "opc.tcp://localhost:53530/OPCUA/SimulationServer";
final EndpointDescription[] endpoints = UaTcpStackClient.getEndpoints(endpointUrl).get();
final OpcUaClientConfigBuilder config = new OpcUaClientConfigBuilder();
config.setEndpoint(endpoints[0]);
final OpcUaClient client = new OpcUaClient(config.build());
client.connect().get();
final List<NodeId> nodeIds = IntStream.rangeClosed(1, 50).mapToObj(i -> new NodeId(5, "Counter" + i)).collect(Collectors.toList());
final List<ReadValueId> readValueIds = nodeIds.stream().map(nodeId -> new ReadValueId(nodeId, AttributeId.Value.uid(), null, null)).collect(Collectors.toList());
// Bulk read call
final ReadResponse response = client.read(0, TimestampsToReturn.Both, readValueIds).get();
final DataValue[] results = response.getResults();
if (null != results) {
final List<Integer> values = Arrays.stream(results).map(result -> (Integer) result.getValue().getValue()).collect(Collectors.toList());
System.out.println(values.stream().map(String::valueOf).collect(Collectors.joining(",")));
}
client.disconnect().get();
The code performs a bulk read call on 50 integer variables (“Counter1” to “Counter50”). For performance tests you can put the bulk read call in a loop and measure the times. You should, however, connect to the server over the target network, not on localhost.
With a free (however not open-source) OPC UA simulation server by Prosys and Eclipse Milo for the client I measured times around 3.3 ms per bulk read of these 50 integer variables. I got similar results with the UA.NET stack by the OPC Foundation. Of course, you should do your own measurements with your target setup.
Keep also in mind that the preferred way to use OPC UA is not to constantly poll the values of all the variables. OPC UA allows you to monitor variables for changes and to get notified in case of a change, which is a more event-driven approach.
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