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OPC UA (Open Platform Communication Unified Architecture) provides the necessary infrastructure for interoperability across the Enterprise, from Machine-to-Machine (M2M), Machine-to-Enterprise (M2E) and everything in-between.

The OPC UA was initially released in 2006 - 2008 and has a very broad Market deployment footprint since then. OPC UA specificifies a Platform independent Service-oriented Architecture, that integrates all the functionality of the individual OPC Classic Specifications into one (1) extensible Framework.

OPC UA specifications are stipulated in International Standard IEC 62 541 (https://opcfoundation.org/news/opc-foundation-news/update-iec-62541-opc-ua-published/). The current version of the OPC UA specification is on 1.04 (22 November 2017). The new version of OPC UA now has added Publish/Subscribe in addition to the Client/Server communications infrastructure. The OPC UA Information Model is a so-called Full Mesh Network based on nodes. The OPC UA Architecure supports two (2) Protocols. This is visible to Application programmers only via changes to the URL. The binary protocol is opc.tcp://Server and http://Server is for Web Service. Otherwise OPC UA works completely transparent to the API. 

After the initial release in 1996, the OPC Foundation was created to maintain the Standard. As OPC has been adopted beyond the field of Process Control, the OPC Foundation changed the name to Open Platform Communications in 2011. The change in name reflects the Applications of OPC Technology for Applications in Building Automation, Discrete Manufacturing, Process Control and many others. OPC has also grown beyond its original OLE (Object Linking and Embedding) implementation to include other Data transportation Technologies including Microsoft's .NET Framework, XML, and even the OPC Foundation's binary-encoded TCP format.

UA OPC Markets & Collaboration

The OPC Foundation facilitates the adoption of OPC Technology through collaboration with other international standards organizations in order to provide Data inter-operability. 

For a list of list of joined Working Groups, Companion Specifications and Liaisons, you can read further at the OPC UA webpage section on Markets and Collaboration with a link: https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/10SOpad6uu7JA5ZSpccVyqaqkyhYBiIXqNus28-1cJtU/edit?usp=sharing

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For further information on the OPC UA, please see attached below the OPC UA Open IEC 62 541 (current) Standard specification from Jan 2021.