The preparation for Scada Review 2013 started in the middle of May 2012 and was triggered by constructive feedback received from vendors responding to the Scada Review 2012 questionnaire.
Since then, with the active participation of vendors, readers and the C&I fraternity, we have engaged in brainstorming sessions about presentation format and content, taking into account changing technology. We have also polled our reader base and industry participants to determine the level of interest in and influence of the review. The results of that poll were revealed in the February 2013 issue of S A Instrumentation and Control.
The outcome of all these endeavours is another great insight into real-world implementations of the major scada systems available in our market with perspectives provided by end-users, SIs and vendors.
Hidden gems
The presentation format of a review of this nature is at best a compromise, but the content is certainly not. We encourage readers to sift through the content of each project. There are hidden gems buried there that can be applied to any scada project:
* Ideas for user interfaces from Kairos Control Systems.
* A way to overcome the bandwidth required to back up huge archives over the network from GE Intelligent Platforms.
* Advansys’ clever use of contextual trends and alarms.
* A pointer to ISA 18.2 Management of Alarm Systems for the Process Industries from Banani Construction.
* A suggestion for using TeamViewer for scada support from Rand Carbide.
* A redundant architecture from Schneider Electric . . . and lots more.
Trends
Last year we commented on how upgrade projects are being mandated by changes in operating systems and again this year we see that trend has continued. It will be interesting to watch how this develops since the applications running on the servers will be strongly influenced by such changes, but as browser- and cloud-based solutions take a foothold, scada clients should be less influenced by OS changes.
Paralleling that we are seeing a slow but steady move to virtualisation technology and the deployment of thin clients served by terminal servers. The majority of vendors now offer virtualisation support in some or all of their modules, but few end-users seem to have adopted this architecture.
Which of these models will be the winner in the industrial environment? Could one of them go the way of the Dodo and Betamax? It is hard to imagine the demise of either one, but Total Cost of Ownership must surely still be a factor in deciding which architecture to adopt.
This year, for the first time, we have respondents showcasing the use of mobile devices in conjunction with their scada systems. In some cases these mobile devices are being used for support only and in other cases as mini scada view terminals. It is a trend that we expect to continue, but when everybody has a handheld device that has the technology to access the plant network security risks must escalate.
What is missing?
Reading through the review questionnaire responses there are two major questions that come to mind:
* Why do we see so little evidence of the integration of scada and business systems?
* The responsibility for many aspects of scada system/network security, data protection and configuration control is being left with the end-user. Is this the correct or only party who should carry this responsibility?
Thank you
On behalf of our readers we again thank the end-users, SIs and vendors for their efforts in comprehensively completing our 2013 scada questionnaire, for sharing their expertise and experience and continuing to expand the knowledge base of the C&I industry in South and southern Africa.
Notes:
1. The order of appearance of scada reviews is based on the order in which they were received by S A Instrumentation and Control.
2. Some reviewer responses have been edited due to space and comprehension considerations.
3. A ‘No’ or ‘N/A’ response to a question in the project-specific responses does not necessarily mean that the scada system lacks that feature; only that the feature was not implemented in or not applicable to the subject project.
4. Where a respondent has not answered a question or has answered off topic that response has been omitted.
5. A blank copy of the full questionnaire with unabbreviated questions can be found at http://instrumentation.co.za/+C17783
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