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Why use modbus, a protocol that is nothing more than remote access to a bitfield, when you can have OPC UA, a semantic object-database with an (encrypted) meta-object protocol for remote access and real-time notifications.

If you look at the offerings of GE, Siemens, and the like, all signs point towards OPC UA as the TCP based protocol for industry that everybody agrees to use.

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In principle I agree. But OPC UA from an implementation standpoint of view is much more complicated and involved compared to modbus.

I also would express your second paragraph slightly different. Each industry has its own preferred protocols and they are enhancing them and creating new ones. Additionally most companies offer OPC (UA) interfaces, thus making OPC the only protocol which is used over all industries. So if you want to interface with industrial systems, there is a good chance that the only thing you need is indeed OPC UA.

Funny seeing you here :) I think we've worked out some interop issues between our OPC UA stacks in the past.

Hey Kevin, It's a small world, apparently. :)

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