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OPC and Universal Connectivity
Mitsubishi Electric Iconics Digital Solutions offers open, standards-based connectivity to smart devices, control systems, and enterprise applications. GENESIS supports a number of industrial communications standards and the platform's configurable features provide universal connectivity through web services, database interfaces, and data bridging to unify and contextual operational data from any source.
The Challenge: Industrial Connectivity
Industrial environments contain a heterogeneous landscape of smart devices, industrial control systems, database driven applications, and enterprise systems—many using different protocols, data formats, and communication standards. Without a unified connectivity strategy, organizations struggle to share data across boundaries and unlock operational intelligence.
Common Challenges
- Proprietary protocols creating data silos between OT and IT systems
- Inconsistent support for communication standards such as OPC
- Difficulty bridging data between disparate SCADA, historian, and ERP platforms
- Complex web services and API integrations requiring customization with limited support
- Security and compliance concerns when exposing industrial data to enterprise networks
Resulting Business Impact
- Missed opportunities for enterprise-wide analytics due to fragmented data access
- Higher integration costs from custom middleware and point-to-point connections
- Slower time-to-insight as data remains locked in incompatible systems
- Increased cybersecurity exposure from unmanaged data pathways
- Reduced operational flexibility as new devices and systems are difficult to onboard
Modern industrial operations require a platform with connectivity that spans legacy and next-generation standards, enabling secure, reliable data flow from field devices to enterprise applications without added complexity.
The Solution: Universal Connectivity with GENESIS
GENESIS supports the full range of OPC standards including OPC Unified Architecture (UA) and OPC Classic-OPC Data Access (DA), OPC Historical Data Access (HDA), and OPC Alarms and Events (A&E). Beyond OPC, the platform provides native web services support for RESTful APIs, connectivity to database platforms, and integrated bridging capabilities that enable data exchange in a heterogeneous landscape of different devices, industrial control systems, databases, and enterprise applications.
Mitsubishi Electric Iconics Digital Solutions (formerly ICONICS) was a charter member of the OPC Foundation and has contributed to the creation of OPC standards, the development of OPC Foundation sample code, and OPC interoperability testing. Today, Mitsubishi Electric retains representation on the board of directors for the OPC Foundation, ensuring GENESIS and other software offerings remain at the forefront of interoperability standards.
Universal Connectivity with GENESIS' modular, unified architecture
Universal Connectivity
Data bridging, normalization, and workflow
Real-World Applications
Hydrovision Ltd.
Manufacturing
Hydrovision Ltd. uses GENESIS to develop a scalable control system for remotely operated vehicles (ROVs), built on open standards and OPC-based integration. The platform enables seamless communication between software components and industry-standard hardware through an OPC server, supporting flexible system design, simplified integration, and consistent performance across a wide range of ROV configurations.
Result highlights:
- OPC-based integration enabling seamless communication across systems
- Open, standards-based architecture supporting long-term scalability
- Consistent control performance across multiple ROV configurations
- Simplified system modification and customer-driven customization
"Through many ROV implementations with Mitsubishi Electric Iconics Digital Solutions’ GENESIS software over several years, it has proven to be a highly reliable, accurate and dependable system."
Hydrovision Ltd.
AES Wind Generation
Utilities and Energy
AES Wind Generation uses GENESIS to unify turbine, substation, and environmental data across a multi-turbine wind farm through OPC-based integration. Data from multiple sources and protocols is brought into a standardized OPC layer, enabling consistent monitoring, analytics, and reporting while allowing independent evolution of turbine control systems and SCADA application.
Result highlights:
- OPC-based integration across multiple protocols and data sources
- Standardized data layer enabling consistent monitoring and reporting
- Decoupled architecture allowing independent system modifications
- Reduced reliance on third-party development and lower operational cost
"Mitsubishi Electric Iconics Digital Solutions' GENESIS is a great software for fast and reliable integration."
Greg Howard
Systems Integration Manager, AES Wind Generation
Operational Outcomes and Business Benefits
Unified Data Access
Connect to virtually any device, system, or historian using open OPC standards, bridging, or web services, eliminating data silos and enabling a consistent operational data layer across the enterprise.
Lower Integration Cost
Native support for OPC UA, OPC DA, OPC HDA, OPC A&E, REST APIs, and bridging replaces costly custom middleware and point-to-point integrations, reducing both initial deployment and ongoing maintenance effort.
Future-Ready Standards Compliance
Built by a founding OPC Foundation member, GENESIS provides certified compliance with current and emerging OPC standards, protecting your connectivity investment as protocols evolve.
Secure Enterprise Connectivity
OPC UA's built-in security model—combined with GENESIS platform-level authentication, encryption, and auditing—ensures data moves safely between OT and IT environments without compromising operational integrity.
Universal Connectivity Capabilities
Compliance with Industry Standards
GENESIS includes compliant support for OPC UA as a client and server, including functional equivalence with all OPC Classic specifications (legacy OPC Data Access as a client), built-in security controls for encryption, authentication, and auditing, and platform independence spanning embedded controllers to cloud infrastructure. GENESIS supports OPC Historical Data Access (HDA) to integrate historical data from third-party historians and expose its own historical data to external clients in a standards-compliant manner. Additionally, GENESIS supports OPC Alarm and Events (A&E) to deliver standardized alarm and event data to client applications, supporting ISA-18.2 alarm management practices and enterprise-wide event visibility.
Web Services for RESTful APIs
GENESIS includes a configurable Web Services connector to enable connectivity of RESTful Application Programming Interfaces (APIs) for retrieving and writing operational data points from the platform. Typical endpoints provide integration with third-party applications, voice interfaces, mobile platforms, and enterprise systems. GENESIS Web Services connectors support multiple providers and enables JSON-based configuration for flexible deployment across modern IT environments, including integration with platforms such as Amazon Alexa, Microsoft Bot Framework, and Google services.
Data Bridging, Normalization, and Workflow
GENESIS includes integrated bridging capabilities that enable bidirectional data exchange between disparate industrial systems, historians, databases, and enterprise applications—without requiring custom middleware or proprietary connectors. Bridging supports scheduled and event-driven data transfers, data transformations, configurable workflows, and connections to systems spanning OPC servers, relational databases, and API endpoints. Bridging enables operational data exchange across applications, consolidation and normalization of data from multiple sources, along with providing live and historical feeds to existing enterprise data management strategies (data lake, data estate, data warehouse).
Third-Party Device and Protocol Support
Mitsubishi Electric Iconics Digital Solutions partners with Takebishi to provide the DeviceXPlorer OPC Server, which bridges the gap between field devices and Human Machine Interface (HMI)/Supervisory Control and Data Acquisition (SCADA) systems. Supporting over 230 device types—including PLCs, machine tools, and robots—DeviceXPlorer is compatible with OPC UA, OPC DA, OPC A&E, and MQTT extending GENESIS connectivity to virtually any Industrial Internet of Things (IIoT) device or industrial control system.
Built for Security, Standards, and Enterprise Integration
GENESIS modernizes industrial connectivity foundations—enabling secure, standards-based data access across OT and IT boundaries to support today's operational demands and tomorrow's digital transformation initiatives.
Connectivity standards and protocols supported:
- OPC Standards: OPC UA, OPC DA (Classic), OPC HDA, OPC A&E
- Native Drivers: Modbus, MQTT, BACnet, and BACnet SC
- Industrial Protocols: Hundreds of 3rd-parties supported through DeviceXPlorer relationship
- Web and API Standards: Configurable connector for RESTful web services
- Database Platforms: ODBC, OLE DB, SQL Server, Oracle, and various NoSQL databases
- Enterprise Data: Azure Data Lake, Hadoop, Event Streaming Platforms (ex. Kafka)
- Operational Standards: ISA-18.2, ISA-95
- Infrastructure Monitoring: SNMP v1/v2
The GENESIS automation platform is designed with security embedded at every layer, supporting scalable authentication from basic credentials to enterprise OpenID Connect (OIDC) and SAML 2.0 integration. Built with an agile development framework with extensive use of automated testing, the platform is dynamic, adaptable, and cybersecure, backed by 3rd-party certifications including ISO 9001, IEC 62443, and CMMC.
Ready to Learn More?
Data Bridging with GENESIS
Learn more about the powerful data integration and configurable workflow capabilities available within the GENESIS platform.
DeviceXPlorer OPC Server
DeviceXPlorer OPC Server supports over 230 devices and is compatible with OPC UA, OPC DA, and OPC AE.
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Unify your operational data with open, standards-based connectivity across every device, system, and enterprise application.