Internet Scada

The Internet is robust and often an integral part of our everyday operations, without it we would be lost. SCADA systems continue to evolve and as we see better connectivity and speed on the Internet, we also are seeing more Web-based applications. One such application located at http://www.icscada.ca/outlaw/ is the latest offering for an online SCADA modbus/ROCtalk polling HMI system. This system allows the use of managed servers to run the polling and database application - the SCADA customer simply connects to a website and secure login to view/edit/manage the data collected. The end device is cued so as to offer additional security and protection from the darker side of the internet and the business of sharing the data is so simple via text, csv and pdf files, no knowledge of databases, opc or other complicated setups is required.
This new networked model has started to become the best choice when reducing cost of ownership. As there are minimal initial costs required at the end device side, other than an modem which is often included in a rental access package. Maintenance also becomes a zero overhead issue - with no hardware, no software, no OS to manage, upgrade, worries of virus infections etc "virtually" dissapear. Often the existing Host hardware is reused to do web based activities further reducing the cost of upgrades and hardware. If you are trying to control costs, what better way than to have a fixed cost and no surprises for hardware failure or OS upgrades etc.

How it all works:
Hosted Service Polling Structure

* Apache and PHP (The webs most reliable and popular web systems) serve up all data useing thin graphical web pages. Keeping this simple and light is the secret to a fast useable system via cell phone or high speed connections.
* Poller software runs on the remote server, this is a poller designed to poll modbus or whatever your protocol requirements are.
* Database applications take the polled info and store it to reliable SQL based data tables.
* SSL handles all security and related functions to offer a secure and reliable connection to your data.
* Backups are as easy as downloading offline, or it can be arranged easily to remotely store a copy.

The Internet is the primary network backbone but if required, the whole system can be moved at any time from a hosted system to a customer owned server system. This is another advantage as cost of ownership at the start can remain low until it is required to own and support your own servers.
Remote Support Flow does not require costly field visits to perform simple changes.
The whole system is remotely managed, upgraded and supported without the need to travel to a remote site, if it fails, it will be noticed immediately and addressed. Further watchdogs exist to monitor and alert the owner of alarms and server issues if required.
Exporting Data by using Email or csv exports saves paper and human mistakes.
Even daily reports can be automatically emailed to the dept required or directly to a field data capture application.
Alarms can now be handled with SMS, email or even via internet connected devices like reays and aru's.
Imagine now you have the ability to have a scalable system of 1 or 1000 rtu's spanned all over the globe, this is also a great place to share this info with your customers/partners/operators with various levels of access and ability. The Production Accountants may be in the head office looking at the production while the operators are completing the production gathering at the field level. The Engineering staff can be running several trend and reports of past performance as ALL information is shared real time and with AJAX and Javascript, ALL users have the data available while they work from seperate locations simultaneously. This should help where faxing and hand entry systems had been the un-ecological mode of communicating production data in the past.
These systems are so flexible that a simple demo is often too simple to acurately show off the features and abilities of a hosted web application. If you are considering upgrading ANY SCADA based HMI system, consider a hosted web based HMI system and start saving valuable time and money.

See a Live demo today at http://www.icscada.ca/outlaw/