Profile
In OPC UA, a Profile is a named, published set of Facets that together define what an application must implement, for example the Standard UA Server Profile (2017). Profiles are registered at profiles.opcfoundation.org, identified by URI, claimed by a server in ServerProfileArray, and are the units a product is certified against.
Where profiles come from
The canonical registry is profiles.opcfoundation.org. Each profile has a stable page and numeric id, and a URI of the form http://opcfoundation.org/UA-Profile/Server/StandardUA2017. Server profiles, client profiles and transport profiles all live in the same registry. Transport profiles are the same machinery applied to the wire protocol, which is why http://opcfoundation.org/UA-Profile/Transport/uatcp-uasc-uabinary appears in every EndpointDescription you have ever read.
Profile, facet, conformance unit
The three levels are strictly nested. A Profile is composed of Facets; a Facet is composed of Conformance Units; a Conformance Unit is a single testable requirement. The facet machinery and the semantics of conformance units are defined normatively in Part 7, section 4.3. Practically this means a profile is never a vague marketing tier: it expands into a finite list of behaviours the Compliance Test Tool can check one by one.
Which profiles you actually meet
For servers, the base is the Standard UA Server Profile (2017), with add-on facets for data access, methods, historical raw data, aggregates, reverse connect and client redundancy. The ones that matter commercially are the ones a purchasing spec names. Real URIs you will find in the field include /Server/StandardUA2017, /Server/DataAccess, /Server/Methods, /Server/ReverseConnect, /Server/HistoricalRawData2022, /Server/AggregateHistorical2022 and /Server/LocalDiscovery2017.
Reading a profile claim on a live server
Every server publishes its claimed profile and facet URIs in ServerProfileArray under the Server object. That array is the only machine-readable statement of intent you get, and it is what a tender response should be checked against. It is a claim, not proof: only a test-lab certification record proves the claim was verified.
Example
Profile and facet URIs as they appear in ServerProfileArray
http://opcfoundation.org/UA-Profile/Server/StandardUA2017
http://opcfoundation.org/UA-Profile/Server/DataAccess
http://opcfoundation.org/UA-Profile/Server/Methods
http://opcfoundation.org/UA-Profile/Server/HistoricalRawData2022
http://opcfoundation.org/UA-Profile/Server/AggregateHistorical2022
http://opcfoundation.org/UA-Profile/Transport/uatcp-uasc-uabinaryDefined in: Part 7 - Profiles. Facet composition and conformance-unit semantics are in section 4.3.
Last verified 7 September 2026 against OPC UA 1.05.07. OPC UA Connect is an educational resource and is not affiliated with the OPC Foundation.