AFAIK: if EWM is licensed, not additional license is needed for the PCo. The software can be downloaded from the service market place (software distribution center).
But, just to make it clear: you do need a RFC adapter - it does not have to be SAP PCo.
I downloaded the PCo but I only can run the PCo management console in DEMO mode.
SAP PCO LIbrary:
"If you do not install a license key, you can only test PCo. All running agent instances are then ended automatically after 30 minutes. In this case, PCo displays a red information message in the menu bar.
End of the note."
Do you know any other adapter (not PCo) to connect MFS and a PLC?
for using SAP EWM Material Flow System (MFS) a separate license is required (in addition to SAP EWM license). The MFS license also includes productive usage of SAP Plant Connectivity (PCo). EWM MFS and PLCs are connected using socket agents of PCo.
Some of our partners that implement SAP EWM (MFS) do have own connectivity solutions as alternatives to PCo but I'm pretty sure that these solutions aren't free of charge .
I know its been a long time since this question was asked by you, but want to check if you got an answer for your question on ..." to use PCo with EWM MFS, are we restricted to use only socket agent as source system? Can't we use other source system agents like OPC?"
The reason I am asking is, we are trying to connect EWM MFS (RFC destination) --> PCO --> OPC_UA (Source system). But we are not able to send or receive data into OPC_UA.
I am hoping you already have any answer for the above question.
For using PCo with MFS, you must use the Socket Agent only. It is the only agent that is built to call specific functions like START/STOP/SEND on the EWM side. No other agent has these function calls, so you will not be able to use them.
However, if you do need to connect an OPC server to EWM, you have the following options:
Use the proprietary communication layer instead of the SAP communication layer (/SCWM/MFS_PLC)
Develop a custom agent using the PCo SDK to connect MFS and OPC.
Use a 3rd party application/interface to transfer the data from the socket agent (TCP/IP) to the OPC server (UA protocol)
Some OPC servers will provide a user configurable (U-CON) driver that you can use to connect MFS->PCo->(U-CON) OPC.
Thanks for your quick response. Your response confirms we must only use Socket agent if we are using PCo with EWM MFS.
Coming to the proposed options....
For option 3: Do you have any recommendation or aware of any 3rd part application that can do the data transfer from socket agent (TCP/IP) to OPC_UA server?
No, I am not aware of any such 3rd party application. I don't believe there are any. You would have to build your own such application using the OPC_UA server SDK / open source OPC SDK.
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