An approach for OSGi and DPWS interoperability: Bridging enterprise application with shop-floor

Scope and importance of the enterprise applications are increasing constantly, as these information systems allow more effective usage of enterprise time and resources. The enterprise applications are retrieving the information about the production processing the data from outer sources. The factory shop-floor devices are among the most important data sources. The exposure of the shop-floor devices information and functionality to information systems is currently being implemented employing Service-Oriented Architecture (SOA) paradigm. Device Profile for Web Services (DPWS) is among the most employed technologies providing the service functionality to devices. The contemporary factory information system is usually a continuously expanding set of dissimilar, independent applications, which are separately retrieving the information about enterprise processes. These applications frequently duplicate information or functionality of each other. The necessity to integrate these applications emerges, once the overlap between applications should be removed. Creation of multiple custom integrations between the applications in constantly developing system, commonly, is not an effective practice. The Message Oriented Middleware (MOM) can simplify and standardize the integration, providing neutral messaging system. Currently MOM and factory information systems are often implemented employing dynamic packaging systems such as OSGi. The approach for interoperability of OSGi and DPWS presented in this article is based on the DPWS adapter function block. This block can be deployed in OSGi system, instantiated and configured for particular integration tasks. This approach aims to introduce the loose connection between the enterprise information system and devices.