Convergence of OPC UA and DPWS with a cross-domain data model

Service Oriented Architecture (SOA) is more popular than ever in a lot of different application domains. Initially used only at the enterprise level this approach is now spreading to the other layers down to the device level. In this context, the interoperability between the systems and the devices communicating across all domains and layers has to be particularly well defined. This interoperability addresses not only the communication protocols but also the semantic of the exchanged data. In the first part, this document focuses on the exchanged data, explaining the basics of some data modeling standards, illustrating the data modeling from the point of view of specific domains and showing how a common cross-domain data model can be achieved. The second part addresses more the communication part, explaining how the exchange of data could be enhanced by the convergence of OPC UA and DPWS. Previous studies already showed that a convergence between DPWS and OPC UA was feasible and interesting. This document demonstrates some additional benefits and presents a real implementation of such a convergence on an embedded device.