User Manual

Building Technologies

MM8000 OPC Connectivity Configuration Guide

Fire Safety & Security Products

06.2007

2 Configuration of generic OPC subsystem

2.1 Overview

The entire configuration related to control units connected to MM8000 via an OPC

server is defined in Composer.

The OPC configuration in MM8000 includes 3 main logical steps:

1. Definition OPC items provided by the OPC server

In Composer, MM8000 can support an OPC Driver (NS8019) that can connect

to one or more OPC servers.

For each server, the NS8019 driver can handle a set of OPC items, defined in

Composer by importing a CSV file (recommended), or browsing in the Server

address space and selecting the required items, or entering the list of OPC

items manually.

2. Definition of the subsystem(s) and related points

The subsystem representing the OPC control unit can be added in the

Composer tree in the same way as other types of units.

In the subsystem, you can then add the required number of data points, repre-

senting in MM8000 the physical and logical entities provided by the OPC items.

Composer can support typical safety and security objects (e.g.: zones, doors)

and well as general purpose objects (e.g. inputs, outputs, generic objects).

Note that the use of system templates can remarkably help you in performing

this step whenever the same structure of points and folders can be used more

than once. Once a reusable structure is built up, you can save as template and

add it again with a simple mouse click. The template is stored in the local Com-

poser and applicable on any other project.

3. Link between subsystem’s points and OPC items

OPC items and the subsystem points are finally linked in order to enable

the communication mechanism. In the link, you have to set the logical rule that

applies to the actual value or information when it is moved from OPC into

MM8000. A number of Item classes are available for this purpose and main-

tained by a dedicated engineering tool (OPCXMLeditor).

Each item class deals with data types and format and defines the way states,

commands, and transactions are interpreted in the OPC items and then handled

by MM8000.