Recently i implemented a JAVA API for WinCC Open Architecture. So, it is possible to implement WinCC OA API Manager in Java. I used this to implement a simple API Manager in Java to connect WinCC OA to MQTT.

MQTT is a machine-to-machine (M2M) “Internet of Things” connectivity protocol. It was designed as an extremely lightweight publish/subscribe messaging transport. It is useful for connections with remote locations where a small code footprint is required and/or network bandwidth is at a premium (http://mqtt.org/).

The example is connected to a WinCC OA datapoint in system 1, sends incoming values through MQTT to HiveMQ (http://www.hivemq.com/try-out/, there is a public available MQTT broker for testing available). Another Java API Manager is subscribed to the MQTT broker, receives the values changes by MQTT and sets it to the WinCC OA system 2…

I have implemented a Database Logger for WinCC OA which supports different databases.

I did now a first test to compare some databases with WinCC OA and time series logging.

The logger is writing 1000 values/second to four databases in parallel: MSSQL Server, InfluxDB, Phoenix (based on Hadoop/HBase) and Oracle.

There are now about 160.000.000 values in each database. About 3.600.000 values are added every hour…

Four Ctrl-Scripts are querying data with dpGetPeriod every 10 seconds, random time frames (between 1 and 2 hours of data).

Oracle seems to be slower (i think this is related to my test environment), but the access and response times are stable with growing amount of data in the database.

remark: at 10pm the Oracle DB backup starts.

On a Mac install the Docker Toolbox.

https://www.docker.com/docker-toolbox

And click on the “DOCKER CLI”

The type: docker run -d -p 3000:3000 –name oa1 vogler/winccoa:influxdb startup

Afterwards you will see your new container and at the preview you can already see the Grafana dashboard, click on it and it will open in your browser.

You have now a running WinCC OA system which is logging some datapoints to the InfluxDB. There is a simple simulation script running which will set random values to Drive1.*

To open the GEDI you have to go to the DOCKER CLI again and type:

bash-3.2$ docker exec -ti oa1 /bin/bash

You now have a bash in the WinCC OA Container. Set the DISPLAY variable to your client (mac). You need a X-Windows-Server on your client (and allow clients to open windows with “xhost +”). At the Mac you may use xquartz: http://www.xquartz.org

dba3d5e6193f:/ # export DISPLAY=macbookpro:0

dba3d5e6193f:/ # gedi &

or type “console”, it will open the WinCC OA Console.

The NoSQL Logger’s configuration file is: /proj/NoSQL/config/config.logger

There you can set the query part of what you wanna log into the InfluxDB. You can specify the FROM clause of a WinCC OA query, also remote queries are possible (if you connect another OA system to this system (distributed system)).

Then you have to restart the NoSQL Database Logger – it is the WCCOAjava program you see in the console. Right, it is implemented in Java with a native API to WinCC OA.

Grafana can be used to create dashboards in a fast and easy way…