IoT, IIoT, Cloud platforms, Web centric platforms, Services platforms,…The landscape of the technology definitely evolves and some buzz words appear whereas some others become old fashioned if not banned.
Supervisory Control And Data Acquisition (SCADA) is one of them…Although SCADA systems are behind all the scenes of our world -Buildings, Energy, Environment, Transportation, Infrastructures – allowing to :
-Acquire real time data from various sources (today we must say “connect objects”)
-Monitor & Control processes (today we must say “Visualize & Manage”)
-Analyse and report (today we must say “Provide services”)
-Interact with other systems (today we must say “Share”)
Above that, SCADA systems have evolved to fit the specific markets user’s needs with available technologies for more than 30 years…
te wave of new players coming with the new technologies may be tempted to forget that and claim that SCADA is dead.
Let’s focus for a second on few facts…
‘True’ or ‘False’?
“SCADA systems are proprietary and not open”
FALSE : SCADA systems can acquire data from any sources including PLCs, sensors, connected objects, and any device that is able to communicate. They also offer a full interoperability with third party systems.
They’re basically designed to gather data and make it available for visualization, control and data processing.
“SCADA systems are not web & mobile compliant”
FALSE : Deployment on web and mobile is usual with modern SCADA. It can run under web browser or mobile app. on cross platform – Ios , Android, …
“SCADA design is user friendly and doesn’t necessary require scripting”
TRUE: The design of a SCADA is mostly done through wizards and a minimum of script. Scripts are available for specific needs. Graphic interface is done using predefined objects libraries. Most advanced of them offer a single platform for design and run time with no need to compile to apply changes.
“SCADA systems can supervise several sites widely spread and are scalable handling millions of real time data”
TRUE: SCADA can be a hypervisor in a distributed architecture with a strong scalability.
“SCADA systems can handle thousand of alarms and events with milliseconds timestamped frequency”
TRUE: High frequency data acquisition and alarms/events processing is one the feature SCADA is designed for.
SCADA is probably dying due to the main stream need of new words…
However, behind the words, SCADA systems remain, including the available technology with a long time experience.
Think about it next time you’ll see SCADA word and don’t be foul by the new words: they don’t always bring better solutions.
Created on: 19 Nov 2018
