The integration of third-party devices and systems on the management level is appropriate:

  • For monitoring and operating plants that are not time-critical
  • When process communication with other automation stations is not needed

Desigo CC

BACnet

BACnet is a widely used communication protocol for building automation and control networks. It defines a number of objects, services and data link layers. It is an essential part of Desigo CC's openness for integrating any third-party devices, using the BACnet/IP protocol. An online auto-discovery and alternatively an offline EDE import are available for integrating third-party devices.

See BACnet 3rd party Integration Guide (A6V10446271).

BTL

For more information about compliance and interoperability of Desigo products, go to https://www.bacnetinternational.net/btl and search for Desigo.

Modbus-TCP

A native Modbus-TCP driver lets you integrate a Modbus TCP server and subsequent Modbus RTU devices via a protocol converter. An offline importer supports the engineering workflow for integrating Modbus data points.

See Modbus Integration Guide (A6V10438039).

OPC

OLE for Process Control (OPC) is a communication standard for exchanging data between windows based software applications and process control hardware without any proprietary restrictions. It is a client/server technology, where one application acts as the server providing data, and another acts as a client using data. The most common specification Data Access (DA) defines a set of objects, interfaces and method to facilitate the interoperability. OPC has been extended to become a cross-platform communication standard, named OPC Unified Architecture (OPC UA).

For more information about OPC, see the documentation by the OPC Foundation (https://www.opcfoundation.org) and the OPC Training Institute (https://www.opcti.com).

OPC DA client

An OPC client interface lets you integrate any OPC server, using the Data Access specification. An offline Importer supports the engineering workflow to integrate OPC items.

See OPC Server Integration Guide (A6V10415483).

OPC DA server

An OPC server option provides a freely configurable set of data points for integration in any enterprise system, using the OPC DA standard. Each data point (object) is represented by several OPC items, providing the relevant readable and writable object property information.

See OPC DA Server Manual (A6V10415485).

The Desigo CC OPC server is officially tested and certified by the OPC foundation.

OPC UA server

OPC Unified Architecture (OPC UA) clients can connect to the Desigo CC OPC DA server using the OPC DA/UA wrapper, provided with the Desigo CC setup. The UA wrapper meets the security model of mutual authentication for a trusted connection between the OPC UA server and the OPC UA client.

See OPC DA Server Manual (A6V10415485).

SNMP

Simple Network Management Protocol (SNMP) is a data communication protocol for monitoring devices and applications on a network. It is an Ethernet based protocol for retrieving management data from networked devices, and exposing this data as properties.

SNMP gives you the capability to monitor a device, e.g., a printer or UPS, which is not directly configured on a computer, but can be reached through a network link.

Device monitoring capabilities are provided by device manufacturers via a Management Information Base (MIB) text file, which describes the structure of the device management data. MIB files use a hierarchical namespace containing object identifiers (OID). Each OID identifies a property that can be read or written via SNMP.

Desigo CC has an SNMP Manager feature for reading and writing information from SNMP agents.

See SNMP Application Guide (A6V10455382).

Web services

Using RESTful technology, Desigo CC provides alarm, object and time series data via web based services for supervising management platforms or other third-party external applications.