As participants in the design and use of control systems are we risk averse or are we risk seeking? This question keeps me awake at night.
And if we want to be risk averse, who do we learn from and what do we turn to in order to reduce risk? My contention is that we learn from the experience of others, from those who adopt best practices; and we turn to published international, local and corporate standards so that our projects are world-class examples of our chosen profession.
Questionnaire format
Once again our scada review questionnaires included sections for end-users respondents, SIs and vendors in order to provide readers with multiple perspectives on the reviewed scada systems.
Takeaways
Perhaps the most rewarding takeaway is the strong response received from scada vendors. In spite of the parlous state of the world economy we received responses from eight participants. Clearly scada technology is alive and well in Africa!
Most of the projects showcased involve technology upgrades (remaining with the same vendor) or crossgrades (change of vendor). Only one of the projects was motivated by a completely new plant, and one involved the replacement of entirely obsolete technology. This is a reflection on the dearth of greenfield projects and on ageing control system infrastructure. In several cases changes in platform technology such as Microsoft operating systems and database engine changes have mandated scada software upgrades. This year sees the first appearance of Windows 7 in participant responses.
Given the predominance of upgrades and crossgrades and the frequency of new releases it is interesting to note that only two of the projects are covered by upgrade agreements.
The spectrum of project tag counts span ranges from 1000 to over 60 000 with Adroit, GE and Wonderware taking the top slots. The size of historian databases on projects like those at the upper end of the spectrum poses its own challenges for backup and bandwidth required for backup. These projects are writing millions and even hundreds of millions of archive records per day. GE’s client’s solution to this has been to run backups locally and then transfer the local backups to a central repository at times of lower bandwidth usage. MS SQL rules as the database of choice in these large systems and MS Reporting Services as the foundation for reporting on these.
The projects show growth in the use of browser based clients – but what happened to adopting mobile devices as HMI platforms for scada? Not one of the showcased sites report using this technology.
Risk seeking?
The responses received (or noticeable through their absence) still seem symptomatic of categories of risk that require further effort:
* There is no evidence of Total Cost of Ownership (TCO) being applied in procurement decisions.
* The myth of the air gap as system protection persists.
* Little attention is being paid to establishing DMZs between networks or to putting Defence in Depth principles into practice.
* There is no mention of configuration control or software asset management being applied.
* Few participants make any reference to either internationally accepted standards and practices or to internal standards and practices from which readers can learn.
Trends to watch for
* Continuing growth in the adoption of browser based clients and in their capabilities and responsiveness, driven in part by greater adoption of HTML5.
* Thinner clients and more use of virtualisation technology.
* Adoption of mobile devices as in-plant HMI platforms.
* More reported incidents of cyber-terrorism targeting scada systems.
* Continuing growth in OPC for integration of diverse systems.
Thank you
On behalf of our readers we thank those end-users, SIs and vendors for their efforts in comprehensively completing our 2012 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 SA 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 the subject project or that the response was incomplete or off topic.
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