Evaluating Impact of Security on OPC UA Performance

The widespread use of OPC UA specification in client/server data exchange in industrial environment introduces many benefits as it allows to keep open the market of the industrial applications, due to the presence of a standard, worldwide and vendor-independent specification. On the other hand, the use of a software infrastructures (complex in the case of OPC UA) between industrial applications and devices (e.g. mainframes, PLC, microcontroller), may impact on the overall performance of the communication between industrial applications. The aim of this paper is to deal with the performance evaluation of OPC UA, pointing out all the main features which could influence performance in the client/server exchange of information. On the basis of the considerations about performance of OPC UA specification, outlined in the paper as said before, some results of a performance evaluation carried on by the authors will be presented; it will focus on the impact of OPC UA security mechanisms on the relevant performance. © 2010 IEEE.