Producing Data

🚧 Roadmap Item - Enhanced producer tooling and simplified configuration are under development.

Publishing data to the Unified Namespace involves creating Bridges (shown as protocolConverter: in YAML) or Stand-alone Flows (shown as dataFlow: in YAML) that read from your devices and format messages according to UNS conventions.

Quick Start - OPC UA to UNS

Create a Bridge to read from an OPC UA server:

protocolConverter:
  - name: opcua-bridge
    desiredState: active
    protocolConverterServiceConfig:
      location:
        2: "line-1"
        3: "pump-01"
      template:
        connection:
          nmap:
            target: "{{ .HOST }}"
            port: "{{ .PORT }}"
        dataflowcomponent_read:
          benthos:
            input:
              opcua:
                endpoint: "opc.tcp://{{ .HOST }}:{{ .PORT }}"
                nodeIDs: ["ns=2;s=Temperature", "ns=2;s=Pressure"]
            pipeline:
              processors:
                - tag_processor:
                    defaults: |
                      msg.meta.location_path = "{{ .location_path }}";
                      msg.meta.data_contract = "_raw";
                      msg.meta.tag_name = msg.meta.opcua_tag_name;
                      return msg;
            output:
              uns: {}
      variables:
        HOST: "192.168.1.100"
        PORT: "4840"

Message Flow

1. Input: Benthos reads from your device using industrial protocols

2. Processing: tag_processor adds UNS metadata (location, contract, tag name)

3. Output: Messages are published to the embedded Redpanda broker following Topic Convention

Supported Industrial Protocols

UMH Core supports 50+ industrial connectors via Benthos-UMH. For complete protocol documentation and examples, see Bridges - Supported Protocols.

Tag Processor 🚧

🚧 Roadmap Item: The current tag_processor implementation follows the benthos-umh pattern with tag names in payloads. With the next UMH Core release, tag_processor will be updated to align with the new data model where tag names are only in topics (not in payloads) and metadata is not included in message payloads.

The tag_processor is crucial for UNS compliance. It adds required metadata for topic construction. For complete syntax and examples, see Configuration Reference - Tag Processor.

Essential pattern:

pipeline:
  processors:
    - tag_processor:
        defaults: |
          msg.meta.location_path = "{{ .location_path }}";
          msg.meta.data_contract = "_raw";  
          msg.meta.tag_name = msg.meta.opcua_tag_name;
          return msg;

Data Contracts

Choose the appropriate data contract for your use case:

Contract	Usage	Payload Format	When to Use
_raw	Unprocessed device data	{"value": 42.5, "timestamp_ms": 1733904005123}	Initial data ingestion, simple sensors
Custom contracts	Structured business data	Model-defined schema	Enterprise data modeling

Evolution from Raw to Structured

Start Simple (Raw Data):

pipeline:
  processors:
    - tag_processor:
        defaults: |
          msg.meta.data_contract = "_raw";
          msg.meta.tag_name = "temperature";

Results in: umh.v1.acme.plant1.line4.sensor1._raw.temperature

Evolve to Structured (Data Models): 🚧 For structured data evolution using data models, data contracts, and stream processors, see Data Modeling Documentation.

Example result: umh.v1.acme.plant1.line4.sensor1._temperature.temperature_in_c

Stand-alone Flows vs Bridges

For choosing between Bridges and Stand-alone Flows, see the complete comparison in Bridges documentation.

Migration from UMH Classic

UMH Classic Users: The previous _historian data contract is deprecated. Use _raw for simple sensor data and explicit data contracts (like _temperature, _pump) with the new data modeling system 🚧 for structured industrial data. See Migration from UMH Classic to UMH Core for complete migration instructions.

Next Steps

• Consuming Data 🚧 - Process UNS messages
• Data Modeling 🚧 - Structure your data with explicit models
• Configuration Reference - Complete YAML syntax

Learn More

• Connect ifm IO-Link Masters with the UNS - Real-world sensor connectivity
• Node-RED meets Benthos! - Custom processing with Node-RED JavaScript