Trouble Connecting External OPC UA Server to Azure IoT Operations in Kubernetes

Question

Hello,

I am working on a research project related to OPC UA over MQTT and following a tutorial on Azure IoT Operations. My goal is to transfer simulated data from an OPC UA server (Prosys OPC UA Simulation Server) to the cloud.

So far, I have successfully:

• Set up an Azure Arc-enabled Kubernetes cluster on my local machine (Laptop).
• Deployed Azure IoT Operations within the cluster.

However, I am facing an issue when trying to connect the external OPC UA server (Prosys OPC UA Simulation Server) to the OPC UA connector in Azure IoT Operations. I used the UA TCP connection address provided by Prosys to add an asset endpoint, but the connection does not work.

I would appreciate any guidance on:

1. Possible reasons why the external OPC UA server connection is failing.
2. Configuration steps or troubleshooting methods to resolve this issue.
3. Any network, firewall, or security settings that need to be adjusted.

Has anyone encountered a similar issue or have insights into how to successfully connect an external OPC UA server to Azure IoT Operations?

Thanks in advance!

Answer 1

Hello 00407304,

Thank you for reaching out to Microsoft Q&A Forum.

Here are some of the steps you can follow for checking the proper connectivity:

Get the OPC UA Server's Endpoint:

• Obtain the UA TCP connection address from your Prosys OPC UA Simulation Server.

Configure the Asset Endpoint in Azure IoT Operations:

• In the Azure IoT Operations web UI, navigate to the section where you can manage asset endpoints.
• Add a new asset endpoint and enter the UA TCP connection address of your Prosys OPC UA Simulation Server.

Set Up Security and Certificates:

• Ensure that the OPC UA server's application instance certificate is added to the trusted certificates list in Azure IoT Operations. This list is implemented as a Kubernetes native secret named aio-opc-ua-broker-trust-list. Reference 

Network Configuration:

• Verify that your Kubernetes cluster has the necessary network access to reach the OPC UA server. This might involve configuring network policies, firewall rules, or VPN connections.

Monitor and Verify Connection:

• Once the asset endpoint is configured, monitor the connection status in the Azure IoT Operations web UI.

Could you please go through above steps and give the error trace if the issue persists.

Hope this helps. Do let us know if you any further queries.

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Answer 2

Hello @00407304,

welcome to this moderated Azure community forum.

I encountered also a challenge using that same simulation.

So, I'm also interested in the answer @VSawhney shared.

Instead, I went for a different approach and write a custom OPC-UA server using C#.

Check this blog post for both the source code (available on GitHub) and the steps to get it running.

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