Supervisory Control And Data Acquisition

Alarm management can simply be defined as “efficient handling of alarms.” However, this statement has a different meaning to different people. For a process operator, alarm management means “seeing alarms only relevant to him at any given time.” For a control engineer, it means “speed at which alarms are generated, notified, distributed and stored.” And for a plant manager, it could mean “effective notification and distribution of alarms in addition to efficient alarm history retrieval.”

To understand alarm management, we need to understand the “life cycle” of an alarm. The “life cycle” of an alarm is divided into the following stages:

Alarm generation
Alarm notification and distribution
Alarm acknowledgement
Alarm escalation and re-alarming
Alarm storage
Alarm changes
Alarm history retrieval and reporting.
Each of these stages caters to distinct alarm behaviors and can be managed in a variety of ways.

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Innominate Security Technologies AG has joined the Industrial Defender Enabled Partner Program. The program enables technology providers focused on the real-time process control/SCADA market to collaborate on expanding their technology offerings and providing end customers with comprehensive integrated Defense in Depth cyber security solutions.

Innominate Security Technologies AG provides Industrial Ethernet Security and Secure Remote Maintenance solutions for manufacturing and process automation industries. Innominate also offers SCADA security solutions in the industrial security market segment with a focus on the manufacturing and process automation sectors. With the mGuard product line, which supports hardware firewall, VPN and virus protection, Innominate offers an easy way to integrate protection for networked industrial systems, as well as solutions for the secure remote maintenance of industrial machinery and equipment.

“By joining Industrial Defender’s Enabled Partner Program we make it easier for our customers to utilize mGuard technology within a comprehensive Industrial Defender network security system. Customers requiring state-of-the-art security technology in combination with industry-specific expertise and experience in designing, deploying and servicing network security solutions will find that with us. We are very excited about the joint prospects of this cooperation,” said Joachim Fietz, CEO, Innominate.

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The Combrio Virtual Service Infrastructure (VSI) product suite has been expanded to address the need for secure and controlled remote access of automation and process-control network environment for enterprises in the automation and process industries.

VSI Automation and Control is a complete remote product services suite that allows monitoring and management of SCADA elements and applications such as PLCs, distributed control systems, and master control units. Its homogeneous platform addresses both internal access controls, along with third-party vendor services into automation network environments.

The suite also gives remotely located support and service personnel the ability to gain secure, controlled and accountable access to SCADA devices located behind the operations network firewalls.

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ICONICS released its 64-bit-based, OPC-integrated, Web-enabled HMI/SCADA suite, GENESIS64.

The GENESIS64 suite includes several modular solutions that simplify connectivity from the plant floor to corporate business systems. Designed from the ground up to take maximum advantage of Windows Vista, Windows Server 2008, .NET and SharePoint technology, it allows plant operators and IT professionals to integrate real-time manufacturing and business information into a common, Web-enabled visualization dashboard. The GENESIS64 suite is comprised of GraphWorX64, TrendWorX64, AlarmWorX64, EarthWorX and the Workbench Web-based development, deployment and operations products.

The largest cost of any automation project is in engineering the application. For an average project, this can be well over 60% of the total expenditure. Taking advantage of 64-bit computer can greatly reduce this effort, resulting in enormous savings and helping a company’s bottom line.

“GENESIS64 is the first product for manufacturing and automation to take full advantage of the growing popularity of 64-bit computing technology,” said Russ Agrusa, President and CEO of ICONICS. “Coupled with the innovative capabilities found in Windows Vista and Windows Server 2008, the GENESIS64 suite’s next generation features provide customers with a 360-degree view of their entire organization.”

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“I will tell (you) how to break into a nuclear reactor,” Ira Winkler, president of security firm ISAG said as he launched into his presentation on “How to Take Down the Power Grid” at RSA 2008 on Tuesday night.

“Frankly, it’s really easy to break into the power grid,” he said. “It happens all the time.”

First, you set up a Web server that downloads spyware onto the computers that visit.

Second, you send an e-mail to people who work inside a power station that entices them to click on a hyperlink to the Web server with the spyware. Warning them that their human resources benefits are going to be cut and sending them to a Web site with “hr.com” in the domain would work, according to Winkler, who said he has done this several times in company-approved penetration tests.

Third, you wait as the recipients–and everyone else they forwarded the e-mail to–visit the server and get infected.

“Then we had full system control,” he said. “Once the malware was downloaded onto their systems…we could see the screens and manipulate the cursors.”

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ComBrio, Inc., providers of Remote Product Services (RPS) software for mission critical remote datacenter management, today announced the expansion of its Virtual Service Infrastructure (VSI) product suite to address the needs of enterprises in the automation and process industries for secure and controlled remote access of their automation and process-control network environment.

VSI Automation and Control is the first complete RPS suite that provides plant managers and automation engineers a cost efficient and secure solution for remote monitoring and management of Supervisory Control And Data Acquisition (SCADA) elements and applications such as Programmable Logic Controllers (PLCs), Distributed Control Systems (DCS), and Master Control Units (MCO). It is the only purposely built RPS solution that addresses the end-to-end needs of plant managers by providing them with a homogeneous platform to address both internal access controls, along with third party vendor services into automation network environments.

Through the use of VSI Automation and Control, manufacturing, production, power and fabrication organizations can increase availability and productivity of their process-oriented and discrete control systems. The VSI solution allows remotely located support and service personnel with the ability to gain secure, controlled and accountable access to SCADA devices located behind the operations network firewalls.

According to Dave Boulos, VP of product Management, ComBrio, “There have been many advances in embedded management of today’s automation/process control equipment. This coupled with the adoption of Industrial Ethernet as the standard for SCADA inter-device and inter-vendor communications, has opened up the opportunity for plant managers to improve productivity and increase uptime by leveraging a centrally located or distributed resource pool to monitor and service plant network segments remotely. However, manual process and the complexity of managing remote connectivity have impacted the adoption of IP-based remote automation network management, VSI Automation and Control solves this problem.”

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SIXNET announces BlueTree 6000 series rugged cellular data modems targeting the Telemetry, SCADA, Business Continuity and Mobile Data markets. Each modem has application specific functionality enabling SIXNET customers the most appropriate cellular modem for their specific application requirements.

The 6000 series modems will support both CDMA EVDO and GSM HSPA protocols, and standard features include rugged metal casing, Class 1 Division 2 certification, AC adapter options, USB, Serial and Ethernet Ports, multiple mounting options including DIN Rail, built-in routing functionality and IP Pass-Thru. The 6000 series of modems include the following:

BT-6600 Modem for business continuity, landline backup network connectivity, landline replacement, real - time video monitoring, and remote / temporary offices.

BT-6601 Modem for telemetry / SCADA applications including solutions for the oil / gas, electric utilities, and waste / water management industries. The BT-6601 offers high speed internet connectivity over the EVDO Rev. A cellular network to M2M applications for real-time remote access, monitoring and control of remote devices. By combining standard device interfaces with BlueTree’s powerful internet connection management, the BT-6601 adds “intelligence” to any machine-to-machine solution, thus providing reliable communication to business assets

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The MDS from GE Digital Energy is a line of rugged industrial wireless networking solutions. The MDS product line provides secure wireless networking products that optimize the speed and working range for a specific application. The MDS range of wireless networking solutions can provide high scalability, reliability and network management features.

MDS products can be used for a range of industrial wireless applications like data, voice, video, SCADA, telemetry, process control, transaction, mobile data for field force automation, telecom and campus connections and mobile data for public safety.

MDS entraNET 2400, MDS TransNET 2400, MDS NETio, MDS 9810 Transceiver, MDS 1710 Transceiver, MDS 2710 Transceiver, MDS 4710 Transceiver, LEDR 400F/900F/1400F Non-ETSI, LEDR 400F/900F/1400F ETSI and LEDR 400S/900S/1400S Non-ETSI are some of the products in the MDS range of wireless products.

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The AquaClear™ DataStick-based Low-Range Turbidimeter from AquaSensors meets or exceeds USEPA Method 180.1 for drinking water applications in a compact, easy to use package. Low sample chamber volume makes calibration simple and inexpensive, while offering sensitivity and performance optimized for both membrane and conventional filter monitoring. For drinking water treatment, now the choice is clear for online turbidity monitoring!

AquaSensors designs and manufactures innovative analytical measurement systems for a wide range of water quality and process control applications. Their unique ‘direct-to-SCADA’ product design reduces equipment and installation costs, while improving reliability in a wide variety of municipal and industrial water treatment applications.

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GE Fanuc Intelligent Platforms announced the latest version of its supervisory control solution, Proficy HMI/SCADA - CIMPLICITY 7.5, offering more diagnostic tools, security, development tools, connectivity and flexibility than ever before.

Some of the notable enhancements are Digital Graphical Replay (DGR), enhanced Screen Navigation, and easy-to-use Application Deployment.

The Digital Graphical Replay allows users to go back in time and replay CIMPLICITY screens based on logged historical data. Events can be replayed in real time, slow motion or fast forward to analyze systems leading up to alarms, and troubleshoot or optimize applications. DGR is essential for unmanned operations and for improving applications.

A new timesaving capability for developers and operators is the Screen Navigation bar. Frequently, HMI/SCADA developers add a method of navigation to their application, requiring them to build buttons or frames containing links to other screens. CIMPLICITY 7.5 has now made configuring navigation as simple as drag and drop. By simply dragging screens into a hierarchy, users can easily build a task bar menu, with options to color code, and have other attributes so that operators can locate screens quickly and make them more effective.

To facilitate time-consuming deployment of changes in large applications, CIMPLICITY now contains an Application Deployment system to allow development changes to be propagated automatically to all the viewers in the system helping reduce total cost of ownership. By simply configuring when and how you want to deploy the changes, viewers will then detect changes, copy the necessary files, and alert the operator that changes are coming that can be deferred if needed, or configured to force the change.

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