Issue
After adding an OPC UA server to EBO an export is done from the Device discovery tab to find the objects in the OPC UA server.
When the OPC UA server database is big this can take up to a day to finish and sometimes the export is never finished.
Product Line
EcoStruxure Building Operation
Environment
Building Operation Workstation
Cause
In EBO version 7 there is a workaround for this issue, it is possible to split the export up in smaller pieces and export objects from specified folders from the OPC UA server instead of all objects in the OPC UA server database.
Resolution
Introduction
The ‘Export configuration’ section in the settings dialog for discovered devices makes it possible to configure the export procedure. By setting the parameters in this section, you can specify the start node and the depth for each export file. This means that you can break down the export into many files instead of one large file containing everything. When importing the series of export files it is recommended to keep the same structure as the OPC UA server has, but it is not a requirement. You can import the export file anywhere under the device, but again, the recommendation is to keep the same structure as on the OPC UA server.
Selecting start node for browse
The start node is specified by setting the ‘Start node namespace index’ (specified as an integer value) and the ‘Start node identifier’ (specified as a string value). The supported ‘Start node identifier’ types are string (s=), integer (i=), opaque (o=) and guid (g=). Both ‘Start node namespace index’ and ‘Start node identifier’ are found as properties on each OPC UA object. If these values are empty, faulty, equal to the object node or equal to the root node, the device object is included in the export file. Otherwise, it is omitted.
Selecting the depth of browse
The depth of an export file is specified as an integer value. It is recommended that this is set to a low number if the export time is expected to take a long time. Values 0, -1 or empty means that no depth limit is used.
Getting started
A first step could be to export the root objects. The following configuration will handle that:
The export file with this configuration will produce the following result when imported. Since the ‘Start node namespace index’ and the ‘Start node identifier’ are empty, the device object is included, and the import can be done on the ‘OPC UA Client Network’ object
These values are entered into the export configuration:
The export file with this configuration will produce the following result when imported on the ‘BuildingAutomation’ object:
Now we have a structure with all the root objects. All of them are empty except for BuildingAutomation that has two levels of child objects.
If you realize that the depth chosen was to low, you can simply set the ‘Export depth’ to a higher value and create a new export file from the same start node. The ‘Export configuration’ will now look like below:
When importing the new export file we still use the ‘BuildingAutomation’ object as the start object, but since we already have two level of child nodes we need to select the merge option in the import dialog as in the picture below:
