AVEVA™

Protocols User Guide

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Publication date: Friday, June 10, 2022
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Contents

Chapter 1 Welcome ........................................................................................... 4

Documentation Conventions .................................................................................................................4
Technical Support .................................................................................................................................4

Chapter 2 Supported Protocols .......................................................................... 5

SuiteLink...............................................................................................................................................5
SuiteLink Features ........................................................................................................................................ 5
Secured SuiteLink Connection ...................................................................................................................... 5
Common Platform .................................................................................................................................... 7
Hardware and Software Requirements........................................................................................................ 8
Time Stamping.............................................................................................................................................. 8
DDE, FastDDE, and NetDDE ...................................................................................................................8
DDE ............................................................................................................................................................... 8
FastDDE ........................................................................................................................................................ 9
Message Exchange ................................................................................................................................9
OPC ......................................................................................................................................................9
OPC UA .................................................................................................................................................9
MQTT ................................................................................................................................................. 10

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Chapter 1

Welcome

This guide provides background information on the primary communication protocols used between
components of AVEVA products, formerly Wonderware.
A protocol is a set of rules and standards for enabling computers to connect and exchange data over a network.
This guide includes information on setting up and using some of these protocols.

Documentation Conventions
This documentation uses the following conventions:

Convention Used for

Initial Capitals Paths and file names.

Bold Menus, commands, dialog box names, and
dialog box options.
Monospace Code samples and display text.

Technical Support
AVEVA Technical Support offers a variety of support options to answer any questions on AVEVA products and
their implementation.
Before you contact Technical Support, refer to the relevant section(s) in this documentation for a possible
solution to the problem. If you need to contact technical support for help, have the following information ready:
 The type and version of the operating system you are using. For example, Windows 10 version 1903, 64-bit.
 Details of how to recreate the problem.
 The exact wording of the error messages you saw.
 Any relevant output listing from the Log Viewer or any other diagnostic applications.
 Details of what you did to try to solve the problem(s) and your results.
 If known, the Technical Support case number assigned to your problem, if this is an ongoing problem.

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Chapter 2

Supported Protocols

The following section lists the supported protocols.

SuiteLink
SuiteLink uses a TCP/IP based communication protocol. SuiteLink is designed specifically to meet industrial
needs, such as data integrity, high throughput, and easier diagnostics. This protocol standard is supported on
Microsoft Windows NT 4.0 or later.
SuiteLink is not a replacement for DDE, FastDDE, or NetDDE. Each connection between a client and a server
depends on your network situation.

SuiteLink Features
SuiteLink is designed specifically for high speed industrial applications and provides the following features:
 Value Time Quality (VTQ) places a time stamp and quality indicator on all data values delivered to
VTQ-aware clients.
 Extensive diagnostics, including server loading, computer resource consumption, and network transport, are
made accessible through the Microsoft Windows NT operating system performance monitor. This feature is
critical for the maintenance of distributed industrial networks.
 Consistent high data volumes can be maintained between applications when applications are on a single
node or distributed over a large node count.
 The network transport protocol is TCP/IP using Microsoft's standard WinSock interface. You do not have to
create shares for SuiteLink I/O Servers.

Secured SuiteLink Connection

To ensure a higher level of confidentiality and privacy, SuiteLink communication between a SuiteLink server and
a SuiteLink client can now be encrypted. For the SuiteLink server and client to use encrypted communication,
the ASB Runtime Components feature must be selected in the SuiteLink 3.0 installation.
Configuring a Secure SuiteLink Connection
Follow the steps described below to configure a secure SuiteLink connection.

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Chapter 2 – Supported Protocols

Step 1: Set up and Register with the System Management Server

a. Setting up the Management Server: A computer with the application environment is designated as the
System Management Server. The system management server node holds and distributes the security
related information to the other nodes in the environment. The security information is in the form of
server certificates.
b. Registering with the System Management Server: All nodes which needs to securely communicate with
one another will have to register with the management server node. All nodes registered with the
management server node are grouped together, and can communicate securely with one another.
Use the Configurator to configure the ASB Management Server point to the Management Server on the GR
node. For additional information, refer the section Configuring Machine Trust in the Core Communication
Drivers Help.
Step 2: Server Initialization
To ensure interoperability, the SuiteLink infrastructure continues to support and allow both encrypted and
non-encrypted communication.
The table below describes the communication between the applications using the encrypted and/or
non-encrypted SuiteLink protocol. Consider the communication between the encrypted/non-encrypted Client
(say, InTouch) with the encrypted/non-encrypted Server (say, OI Server).

SuiteLink (SL) Communications Encrypted Client Non-encrypted Client

Encrypted Server Secure, encrypted Not secure, not encrypted

Non-encrypted Server Not secure, not encrypted Not secure, not encrypted

If the authentication fails between the Client and the Server, or if the Client or Server do not have access to the
Certificate store, the system continues with the non-encrypted connection as a fallback.
Accessing Server as a Standard User
When accessing the server as a standard user, you cannot establish a secure SuiteLink channel. For a secure,
encrypted communication workflow, the standard user should be added to the 'ArchestrAWebHosting' user
group on the server side.
For more information about adding users to user groups, refer to the Windows-specific documentation.

Step 3: Establishing the secure communication channel

Using the configuration performed with the above steps, the server and client will establish an encrypted
SuiteLink connection. If an error is encountered during any of the above steps, the connection is terminated
either by the Client or the Server.
SuiteLink Install/Upgrade Scenarios

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Chapter 2 – Supported Protocols

Current Version Install/Upgrade Version upgrading Notes

Process to

Prior to WSP < Upgrade using WSP WSP 2017 Update The SuiteLink component is
WSP 2017 2017 Update 3 Install 3 installed silently, and is active.
Update 3
Encrypted Use the Configurator to
Unencrypted manage certificates.

OI Core 1.x., 2.x a) Upgrade using OI OI Core 3.0 This is a standalone SuiteLink
Core 3.0 install install.
Unencrypted Unencrypted
First, upgrade to OI Core 3.0.
Then, install the Secure
b) SuiteLink 3.0 install OI Core 3.0 + PCS SuiteLink and PCS 4.3
4.3 components.
Encrypted Use the Configurator to
manage certificates.

Common Platform
Common Platform services include the System Management Server (SMS). The SMS is used to implement
important security measures for System Platform 2023. These include:
 Setting port numbers for inter-node communications: See Ports Tab for more information.
 Setting the SuiteLink security mode and user access to the AVEVA Network Message Exchange.
o Communication over a SuiteLink connection can be configured to use only encrypted (secure)
communications, or to allow unencrypted communications, if a secure (TLS) connection cannot be
established. SuiteLink is used for a number of different applications in System Platform.
o The AVEVA Network Message Exchange (NMX) is an application communication protocol that leverages
a DCOM-based transport mechanism for communication between nodes.
For information about configuring SuiteLink security and NMX access, select the Advanced Configuration
button and go to the Communications Tab.
 Certificate management: See Import a Certificate for more information.
 User authentication via the OpenID connect standard, which allows single sign on (SSO) via an external
identity provider. See Authentication Provider Configuration for more information.
To enable security, every System Platform node must communicate with the System Management Server. There
should only be one System Management Server in your System Platform topology, otherwise, communication
disruptions may occur. The System Management Server stores shared security certificates and establishes a
trust relationship between machines. You can configure one additional node as a redundant SSO server, which
functions as a backup for single sign-on if the System Management Server cannot be reached.

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If some nodes have not been upgraded to System Platform 2017 Update 3 or later, communication with those
older nodes may need to utilize unsecure communication. However, communication between nodes running
System Platform 2017 Update 3 or later will be encrypted, as long as the nodes are configured to
communication with the System Management Server.
For more information about configuring the System Management Server with an authentication provider, see
Designing a Robust SSO System with an External Authentication Provider.

Hardware and Software Requirements

You must have the following installed to use SuiteLink for data communications.
 Windows NT 4.0 or later
 TCP/IP installed and configured

Time Stamping
SuiteLink allows for the passing of time stamping information with process data. The SuiteLink time stamp is a
64-bit data structure representing the number of 100-nanosecond intervals since January 1, 1901 in Greenwich
Mean Time. This matches the Microsoft FILETIME specification. Conversion to and from local time is the
responsibility of the application layer. All time stamps carried in the SuiteLink protocol are in GMT.

DDE, FastDDE, and NetDDE

The DDE protocols used by AVEVA products are DDE, FastDDE, and NetDDE.

DDE
Dynamic Data Exchange (DDE) is a Microsoft communications protocol that lets applications in the Windows
environment send/receive data and instructions to/from each other. DDE implements a client-server
relationship between two concurrently running applications. The server application provides data and accepts
requests from any other application interested in its data. Requesting applications are called clients. Some
applications, such as InTouch and Microsoft Excel, can simultaneously be both a client and a server.
Note: InBatch does not support DDE/NetDDE connections to the I/O Servers, including InControl. For those
connections, SuiteLink must be used.
Requests for data can be one of two types: one-time requests or permanent data links. With one-time requests,
the client program requests a "snapshot" of the desired data from the server application. An example of a
one-time request is a program, such as Excel, running a report-generating macro. The macro opens a channel to
another application, requests specific data, closes the channel, and uses the data to generate the report.
Permanent data links are called "hot links." When a client application sets up a hot link to another application it
requests the server application to notify the client whenever a specific item's data value changes. Permanent
data links remain active until either the client or server program terminates the link or the conversation.
Permanent data links are a very efficient means of exchanging data because, once the link has been established,
no communication occurs until the specified data value changes. System Platform components can use DDE to
communicate with I/O device drivers and other DDE application programs.

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FastDDE
FastDDE provides a means of packing many AVEVA DDE messages into a single Microsoft DDE message. Message
packing improves efficiency and performance by reducing the number of DDE transactions required between
client and server.

Message Exchange
Message Exchange is a proprietary communication protocol used by the ArchestrA infrastructure. It provides
data communication across ArchestrA’s object-based system.

OPC
OPC (originally OLE for Process Control, now Open Platform Communications) is a non-proprietary set of
standard interfaces based on Microsoft’s OLE/COM technology. This standard makes possible interoperability
between automation/control applications, field systems/devices, and business/office applications.
Avoiding the traditional requirement of software/application developers to write custom drivers to exchange
data with field devices, OPC defines a common, high-performance interface that permits this work to be done
once, and then easily reused by HMI, SCADA, control, and custom applications.
Over a network, OPC uses DCOM (Distributed COM) for remote communications.

OPC UA
OPC Unified Architecture (OPC UA) is an industrial machine-to-machine communication protocol for
interoperability. It provides process control with enhanced security, advanced communication, security, and
information models, and cross-platform connectivity.
OPC UA is implemented as a client in OI Gateway.
OPC UA differs significantly from OPC. The following provides the key differences between classic OPC and OPC
UA.

Classic OPC OPC UA

Uses the COM/DCOM technology of Uses a services architecture to export data,

Microsoft to communicate. It does not have which improves the ease of communication
configurable time-outs. It depends on the and connectivity.
DCOM time-out, which is configured in the
system.
Is dependent on Windows operating Is platform independent and can connect to a
systems. wide variety of devices and platforms.
Has limited security. Has built-in security.
No built-in capabilities to handle problems, Has built-in capabilities to handle problems,
such as lost messages. such as lost messages.

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MQTT
MQTT, formerly called Message Queuing Telemetry Transport, is a publish/subscribe messaging protocol for use
over TCP/IP. MQTT is designed to ensure that devices can communicate with each other while minimizing power
and bandwidth requirements. It is a simple messaging protocol that is well-suited for use with devices that rely
on slow or unreliable networks.
The MQTT protocol is an application layer specification, and has been published as standard ISO/IEC PRF 20922.
MQTT uses a Publish-Subscribe mechanism which requires a mediating broker. The publishers send data to the
broker, and subscribing clients receive data published to the broker. Only clients that have subscribed to a
particular topic receive messages about that topic. The protocol supports bidirectional communication such that
a device that is a publisher can also receive updates.

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