Getting Started Tutorial

Common Tasks

The topics contained in this section are intended to give you quick exposure to the OOI Reactive Application network based data exchange programming experience. Working through this tutorial gives you an introductory understanding of the steps required to create OOI Reactive Application producer and consumer applications using the library UAOOI.Networking.SemanticData. Current release of the NuGet package is available at:

UAOOI.Networking.SemanticData

Here are steps to create a successful OOI Reactive Application:

1. derive from DataManagementSetup - it is place holder to gather all external injection points used to initialize the communication and bind to local resources

2. implement IEncodingFactory interface - to provide functionality to lookup a dictionary containing value converters

3. implement IMessageHandlerFactory interface - to create objects supporting messages handling over the wire

4. implement IBindingFactory interface - to create objects implementing IBinding that can be used to synchronize the values of the local data repository properties and messages received/send over the wire

5. implement IConfigurationFactory interface - to provide access to the selected role configuration

6. register the library EventSource to support common logging infrastructure

Notes:

• It is expected that the encoding/decoding functionality is provided outside in a custom library. The interface IEncodingFactory is used for late binding to inject dependency on the external library.

• Producer and Consumer roles may use independent configurations.

How to Guide

How to: Implement DataManagementSetup

Any application engaging the library is composed using the dependency injection pattern. The DataManagementSetupclass is a placeholder to gather all external injection points used to compose the application, initialize the communication and bind to local resources. The class declares the following properties that must be initialized by the application to provide specific functionality.

  #region Injection points
  /// <summary>
  /// Gets or sets the binding factory.
  /// </summary>
  /// <value>The binding factory.</value>
  public IBindingFactory BindingFactory { get; set; }
  /// <summary>
  /// Gets or sets the encoding factory.
  /// </summary>
  /// <value>The encoding factory.</value>
  public IEncodingFactory EncodingFactory { get; set; }
  /// <summary>
  /// Gets or sets the message handler factory.
  /// </summary>
  /// <value>The message handler factory.</value>
  public IMessageHandlerFactory MessageHandlerFactory { get; set; }
  /// <summary>
  /// Gets or sets the configuration factory.
  /// </summary>
  /// <value>The configuration factory.</value>
  public IConfigurationFactory ConfigurationFactory { get; set; }
  #endregion

Create new class that derives from DataManagementSetup and initialize all mentioned above properties.

 public sealed class LoggerManagementSetup : DataManagementSetup
 {
  public LoggerManagementSetup()
  {
   IServiceLocator _serviceLocator = ServiceLocator.Current;
   string _ConsumerConfigurationFileName = _serviceLocator.GetInstance<string>(ConsumerCompositionSettings.ConfigurationFileNameContract);
   m_ViewModel = _serviceLocator.GetInstance<ConsumerViewModel>(ConsumerCompositionSettings.ViewModelContract);
   EncodingFactory = _serviceLocator.GetInstance<IEncodingFactory>();
   MessageHandlerFactory = _serviceLocator.GetInstance<IMessageHandlerFactory>();
   ConfigurationFactory = new ConsumerConfigurationFactory(_ConsumerConfigurationFileName);
   BindingFactory = new DataConsumer(m_ViewModel);
  }

  ....

 }

In this example, it is assumed that ServiceLocator is implemented to resolve references to any external services.

Finally, call the DataManagementSetup.Start() methods. It is responsible to initialize the infrastructure, create all data bindings, enable all associations, and finally starts pumping the data. If you need any custom startup functionality, just place it just after calling the Start method. The following example originates from the UAOOI.Networking.DataRepository.AzureGateway.PartDataManagementSetup

   Start();
   StartAzureCommunication(ConfigurationFactory.GetConfiguration());

How to: Implement IEncodingFactory

Encoding means that data is represented as a stream of bits according to selected data type, for example long, float, string, structure, etc. Visit the OPC UA Makes Complex Data Processing Possible article to get moore.

It is expected that the encoding/decoding functionality is provided as an external part in a custom library. The interface IEncodingFactory is used for late binding to inject dependency on the external library.

To implement encoding the following steps must be accomplished:

• implement the UAOOI.Networking.SemanticData.IEncodingFactory interface;

• implement the UAOOI.Networking.SemanticData.Encoding.IUADecoder interface;

• implement the UAOOI.Networking.SemanticData.Encoding.IUAEncoder interface;

Note:

This library has been released as the NuGet package UAOOI.Networking.Encoding. Main purpose of this release is to support implementation of the interoperability tests defined by the OPC Foundation. In the production environment, you may simply replace this library by a custom one providing unlimited encoding functionality.

How to: Implement IMessageHandlerFactory

An instance implementing IMessageHandlerFactory creates objects supporting messages handling over the wire services:

• IMessageReader - provides functionality supporting reading the messages from the wire.

• IMessageWriter - provides functionality supporting sending the messages over the wire.

The communicating party can be interconnected using any transparent messages transport infrastructure. For the broker-less transport layer the network infrastructure routes datagram-based messages and the services should implement UDP, AMQP or ETHERNET protocol. Applying the broker-based approach a core component of the transport layer is a message broker and in this case the services should implement AMQP or MQTT protocol.

It is expected that implementation of the IMessageHandlerFactory and as the result messages handling services will be provided as an external part. An example implementation of the messages handling services conforming to UTP standard may be found in UAOOI.Networking.UDPMessageHandler project described in the document Transport over UDP.

How to: Implement IBindingFactory

Introduction

Implementation of this interface is a basic step to implement Consumer and/or Producer functionality. An instance of the IBindingFactory is responsible to create objects implementing IBinding that can be used by:

• Consumer to save the data received over the network in the local data repository.

• Producer to read from the local data repository and send it over the network.

Depending on the role, the IBinding objects are returned from the following procedures of this interface:

IConsumerBinding IBindingFactory.GetConsumerBinding(string repositoryGroup, string processValueName, UATypeInfo fieldTypeInfo);
IProducerBinding IBindingFactory.GetProducerBinding(string repositoryGroup, string processValueName, UATypeInfo fieldTypeInfo);

where:

• repositoryGroup - is the name of a repository group profiling the configuration behavior, e.g. encoders selection. The configuration of the repositories belonging to the same group is handled according to the same profile. For example, the repositoryGroup may be used to represent a browse path in the OPC UA Address Space. In this case browse path aggregates all variables belonging to the same object (e.g. a boiler), which has to be handled consistently on the screen. This name is determined by the DataSetConfiguration.RepositoryGroup in the application configuration (section Reactive Networking Configuration).

• processValueName - is the name of a variable that is the ultimate destination/source of the message values. The value of processValueName must be unique in the context of the group named by repositoryGroup.

• fieldTypeInfo - the field metadata definition represented as an object of 'UATypeInfo`.

Consumer Role Implementation

This section provides hints on how to implement the Consumer role of the OOI Reactive Application processing data received in messages sent over the network by a data Producer.

The Consumer role implementation is captured by the Networking.DataLogger project where DataManagementSetup is implemented by derived class UAOOI.Networking.DataLogger.LoggerManagementSetup.

The class UAOOI.Networking.DataLogger.DataConsumer is an example implementation of a data logger. This functionality is aimed at recording data over time. It consumes the testing data sent over the wire and updates properties in the class UAOOI.Networking.DataLogger.ConsumerViewModel implementing ViewModel layer in the Model View ViewModel (on MSDN). The class DataConsumer demonstrates how to create bindings interconnecting the data received over the wire and the properties that are the ultimate destination of the data. Because there is only one group of variables the GetConsumerBinding method doesn't use the repositoryGroup and the GetProducerBinding is intentionally not implemented.

Producer Role Implementation

This section provides hints on how to implement the Producer role responsible for:

• reading process data from a local repository

• packing the data into the messages

• sending the data over the network to all interested parties

There are two examples of this role implementation:

• Networking.SimulatorInteroperabilityTest - in this project the data expected by a data logger is generated and send over the network

• Networking.Simulator.Boiler - in this project a set of boilers is simulated. It is a part of the proof of concept with the aim of verifying that the reactive communication implemented using the Networking.SemanticData library is well suited to deploy the Internet of Things (IoT) paradigm for highly distributed applications.

In the Networking.SimulatorInteroperabilityTest project, the DataManagementSetup class is implemented by derived class UAOOI.Networking.SimulatorInteroperabilityTest.SimulatorDataManagementSetup. The class UAOOI.Networking.SimulatorInteroperabilityTest.DataGenerator captures implementation of a testing data generator aimed at accomplishing interoperability tests defined by the OPC Foundation for PubSub applications. Because there is only one group of variables the GetProducerBinding method doesn't use the repositoryGroup and the GetConsumerBinding is intentionally not implemented.

In the Networking.Simulator.Boiler project DataManagementSetup class is implemented by derived class UAOOI.Networking.Simulator.Boiler.SimulatorDataManagementSetup. The class UAOOI.Networking.Simulator.Boiler.DataGenerator captures the implementation of a simulator generating data for a set of boilers. In this case, the variables representing the state of one boiler are grouped by the GetProducerBinding method using the repositoryGroup parameter. Because it is the Producer role implementation the GetConsumerBinding method is intentionally not implemented and should not be called.

How to: Implement IConfigurationFactory

Definition of the interface UAOOI.Configuration.Networking.IConfigurationFactory is located in the UAOOI.Configuration.Networking library. This library also contains the class UAOOI.Configuration.Networking.ConfigurationFactoryBase that is a base implementation of this interface. This class may be overridden by a custom class designed according to the user application custom requirements.

Notes for implementers

• If you need a special loading procedure you must use the parameterless constructor of the ConfigurationFactoryBase and assign a new loader method to the ConfigurationFactoryBase.Loader property, alternatively embedded loader will be used to open the configuration file using the filePath provided in the constructor.

• The derived class must override an abstract method RaiseEvents called on the configuration change.

• The embedded configuration loading method uses System.IO.FileInfo to test if the file exists.

Example implementations of this class are in Producer and Consumer.

Both are parts of the example implementation ReferenceApplication.

How to: Register the EventSource

Using the following contract create an instance of the NetworkingEventSourceProvider and call GetPartEventSource to get the local instance of the EventSource that is used locally for the semantic logging purpose.

[Export(typeof(INetworkingEventSourceProvider))]
public class NetworkingEventSourceProvider : INetworkingEventSourceProvider

The EventSourceBootstrapper in Networking.ReferenceApplication project is an example on how to register all EventSource instances to support common logging infrastructure.

See also

• API Browser is available for sponsors- consider joining

• OPC UA Makes Complex Data Processing Possible