Is "Virtual Thin SCADA" a first step towards a SCADA in the Cloud?
Even just a few years ago, the use of PCs and architectures PC based for automation, control and remote control systems it was not viewed with great favor by some of the professionals.
Why? For the difficulty to ensure High Availability and Fault Tolerance in critical applications.
And still today there are some insiders at the process control which somehow maintain this position: if the SCADA network fails, I can no longer manage the system.
However, many companies have moved towards PC based computer solutions, and now the reliability, maintenance and ease of deployment of these systems have become points to deal with.
These companies are in the position of not being able to produce without SCADA systems, both from an operational point of view and due to the need to maintain electronic log of your critical data, whether for legal or regulatory reasons, or production or process reporting requests.
DO YOU WANT TO FIND OUT MORE? DOWNLOAD THE FREE WHITE PAPER: HOW TO VIRTUALISE SCADA AND CREATE ARCHITECTURES SUITABLE FOR INDUSTRY 4.0
SCADA Server "backup" and Redundancy
Over time, solutions have been found with various means to increase system uptime. The most used method was to put a Backup servers ready to be plugged in and up and running if the Primary Server fails. Over time, the cold backup it turned into hot backups, to form a redundant pair and eliminate the need for manual Backup Server startup.
For example, we at ServiTecno have made the solution available for some time now Enhanced Failover combined with our iFIX HMI/SCADA solution by GE Digital. Enhanced Failover automatically synchronizes the database of the two data Servers through a dedicated line: one of the Servers is kept active and the other remains in standby, ready to intervene in case of failure of the primary Server.
Thick Clients, Thin Clients, Terminal Services, RDP
We must remember that Servers are not the only critical components of the SCADA architecture: there are also Clients that can fail.
The time it takes to replace a Client can vary, but if a typical Thick Clients of iFIX (or another SCADA) must be re-installed starting from the operating system, the time necessary for the operation can even be almost half a day.
This time can be reduced by having a recovery image to carry to the replacement PC, or by having a replacement PC ready to connect.
Instead, using Thin client the replacement or addition of Clients is much simpler, as it is sufficient to replace the Thin Client devices and direct them to connect to the Terminal Server. It takes a few minutes to complete this process.
As in the case of a pair of redundant Data Servers (SCADA Servers), if a single Terminal Server is introduced to apply the Thin Client technology, one must be aware that a single point of failure in the system: if the Terminal Server goes down, the Clients are lost. And then it is necessary to foresee a Failover also for the Server TS.
DO YOU WANT TO FIND OUT MORE? DOWNLOAD THE FREE WHITE PAPER: HOW TO VIRTUALISE SCADA AND CREATE ARCHITECTURES SUITABLE FOR INDUSTRY 4.0
Consolidate and Virtualize: “Virtual Thin SCADA”
Once the above has been put into operation, we have made the system redundant and centralized maintenance: we are far beyond a traditional solution based on SCADA Servers and Thick Clients based on "normal" PCs.
However, we can go one step further: instead of continuing to use a "Physical" Server for each application, we can virtualize the system and leverage the advantages of virtual environments, such as VMWare (with the use of VSphere) or the HA/FT environment of STRATUS EverRun Enterprise.
With the Virtualization Software-based, hardware-independent Servers can be created: these Servers can exist on different hardware. To virtualize Servers, it is not necessary to have many physical platforms of Servers. You no longer have to think of a Server as a machine, an operating system that runs on hardware: with a virtual host machine (not a "physical" Server) resources can be divided among several Servers.
If we think of a solution with 4 Servers (one for the Primary and a second for the Backup iFIX Data Server, a third for the Primary and the fourth for the Backup iFix Client/TS Server). In the past (physical solution) 4 Server machines would have been needed: today two could be enough!
Stratus EverRun MX, virtualizes and secures all SCADA and factory applications
With the Stratus® EverRun Enterprise® solution, downtime can be prevented and we're up and running with minimal IT support intervention. Stratus EverRun Enterprise technology is the first solution fault-tolerant, software-based, which supports Single Processor, symmetric multiprocessor (SMP) and multi-core Microsoft applications: just what is needed in terms of performance and reliability for redundant SCADA applications. AND not needs SAN shared!
DO YOU WANT TO FIND OUT MORE? DOWNLOAD THE FREE WHITE PAPER: HOW TO VIRTUALISE SCADA AND CREATE ARCHITECTURES SUITABLE FOR INDUSTRY 4.0
From virtualization to the Cloud, the step can be short.
When we talk about consolidation and virtualization, we usually refer to the Data Centers where the virtual servers from the whole company are concentrated. But there are also some Servers that we would like to virtualize, for which we don't have the budget or we deem it inconvenient to have a VMWare architecture to be able to manage them separately. Think of those Servers, such as SCADA, that we have in the factory, in a control or remote control system in some remote corner, and for which we would need to increase the level of availability, making them High Availability or even Fault Tolerant. Basically a small one “Private cloud”.
With limited IT resources, companies have a simple and cost-effective solution to have their applications available even in the event of system failure, to ensure business continuity. With Stratus EverRun Enterprise, all applications can have fault-tolerant protection at a lower cost than typical recovery-based high availability solutions.
And they can be considered to all intents and purposes the first step towards it Cloud-based SCADA, Today "Private Cloud”, but once the architectures and platforms have been defined (and above all adequate Security criteria), we will already be ready to migrate these applications to “Cloud” structures.
DO YOU WANT TO FIND OUT MORE? DOWNLOAD THE FREE WHITE PAPER: HOW TO VIRTUALISE SCADA AND CREATE ARCHITECTURES SUITABLE FOR INDUSTRY 4.0