By Control Engineering Magazine
New SCADA functionality insights
New capabilities available and under development in supervisory control and data acquisition software were among topics covered at ScadaFest including easier design, operations and maintenance for mission-critical applications. VTScada by Trihedral had its roots in a 1983 water company project, taking over for a couple who lived next to and manually actuated valves to control reservoir height. The software, which began with 5,000 lines of code now exceeds 5 million lines of code with “relentless improvement to make it better,” said founder and president, Glenn Wadden, in the keynote presentation.
Three phases of a SCADA implementation
“We do stuff that’s really critical, 24/7 applications, such as water, power, automotive and other applications that have enormous costs, hundreds of thousands of dollars an hour, from to being offline,” Wadden said. Beyond reliability, the “best productivity is what we’re trying to deliver.” That’s delivered in three phases, Wadden said:
Build: Users need to use SCADA software to build applications efficiently, as an integrated software package, with synchronized redundancy, more complete features and ability to simplify complex tasks. Goal is to accelerate development.
Operate: More hours on are spent on this phase, so it’s important that SCADA software runs, works and delivers best-in-class features with robust redundancy and built-in security. There’s cyberwarfare against critical infrastructure, Wadden warned. The software “just has to work.”
Maintain: No application is ever really done, Wadden said. Users always have to change something in the system, so it’s important that SCADA software is easy to modify for users to do what they have to do. By minimizing technical depth, there’s less risk of software failure. If system isn’t right, it’s more difficult to use or adapt later. “If have to write code to solve a problem that adds technical depth,” he observed, noting that VTScada by Trihedral “supports backward compatibility for decades.”
Online configuration is available. Roll backs, templates and tags are built in.
“We want to make it faster for you to create applications that are easier to maintain, with the vision to make industry run better and make it easier for you to make that happen,” Wadden said. “Help us accelerate to make a more efficient world.”
Critical applications for VTScada by Trihedral include running Niagara Falls generating station.
The theme for ScadaFest this year was “Accelerate.” Barry Baker, VP of Trihedral, said one of the meanings of accelerate is to cause faster or greater activity, development, progress or advancement. The software, previously called Visual Tag System (VTS), was later renamed VTScada and has accelerated to 47,000 licenses. Growth in 2024 include VTScada sales increase of 35%, research and development staff increase of 35% and ScadaFest increase of 12%.
SCADA applications
- Water and wastewater treatment for the country of Malaysia. Indah Water Konsortium (IWK) is upgrading the Subang Jaya Unit with VTScada and a new server, implemented by Novaflow Engineering. The 5000-tag project included third-party PLC and remote I/O.
- Taiwan water treatment, Taiwan Province Water Resources Bureau, Tainan City, uses VTScada with an MQTT client and broker.
- Thailand smart factory real-time monitoring includes air conditioning, air handling, sewage, water, chiller, compressor and cooling tower. A factory monitoring and control system for dynamic random access memory (DRAM) manufacturing uses a VTScada control system for demand monitoring and includes intelligent diagnostics. Application power savings equates to 23 MW hours of power annually, almost 12k tons carbon.
Future features, V12.1 and later, VTScada by Trihedral
Wadden outlined 21 SCADA reporting functions released since last year including parameter expression support in report tag for setting duration; alarm and event data; CVS output; threaded report generation for performance; raw tag data; expanded options for data and time reporting, and copy and paste components. More SCADA reporting functions coming soon include:
- Line charts
- Calculations on data
- Printing reports
- Transposing tables
- Time entry other than seconds
- Collaborative editing
- Recipe data set
- Transaction logger data set
- Single value summary – stations on left and sub-attributes on top
- Server list support in report tag
- Data set management in the user interface (UI) to rename/delete data
- DSTime improvements (database change tracking).
SCADA Upgrades
Widget and image search is expected to be released before 12.2. In VTScada 12.2, the following changes are expected.
- Help Files V6 will be easier to find.
- View and copy full tag name and UniqueID
- New calendar control
- Touch screen numeric keypad
- Properties at top of context menus
- SVG vector image file support (image stretching)
- Tag browser speed improvements, opening up to 50x faster in extreme cases and improved site list pages. (The audience applauded this.)
- Data diode for more cybersecurity (one way data flow). The software checks if it’s being heard and provides a dialog if data is missing, replaying the transmission from the point it was missing, providing an extra layer of security.
- QR code for manual software activation. Click the code on a smartphone, without need to walk away, providing frictionless airgap activation.
- Data entry forms (for all editable fields, in case all information isn’t collected the first time. More can be submitted as needed, supporting multiple types of forms.)
- Sibling links provide a better tag hierarchy. (The old way still works but the new feature does sibling links, shortens the tag tree and makes things more obvious. Automated connecting is supported. This will make your lives better.)
- Sparkplug B Edge Device support (a game changer) for multiple PLCs or edge devices. Subscribe to a broker to get data. This makes live data available to anyone anywhere.
- Publishers can share to another VTScada application and get pieces of data from various applications. This publish-subscribe function will be for Sparkplug B and OPC UA.
- Export a sub-tree of tags to Microsoft Excel (applause), so you don’t have to export all 100,000 tags.
- Multi-factor authentication, Microsoft or Google, 6 digit code per user within 30 seconds
- Keyboard shortcuts reduce the number of clicks. (My dentist was an engineer and used to say you only get so many mouse clicks in your lifetime, Wadden said.)
Additional VTScada features, details
In a follow-up session, presenter Chris Little, provided more details on new features in VTScada by Trihedral. Little said each release includes notes of everything new in the update.
- In the 12.1 series of VTScada by Trihedral releases, the widget search, envisioned about 10 years ago, will be available. The feature is expected to reduce time for developers and reduce unneeded duplication by creating something that already exists as a widget or image.
- Change log upgrades allow for better visibility of all system servers, on-premise, in cloud or hybrid. This can enhance orderly failovers, if needed, and improve Microsoft Windows or VTScada updates.
- Support for open charge point protocol (OCPP) and OCPP user tags for electric vehicle charging stations for more seamless interactions regardless of manufacturer.
- In the 12.2 series of VTScada by Trihedral releases, there will be support for:
- Touch-screen numeric keypads.
- FBx Series DNP3 for Emerson FloBoss Flow Computer.
- Enron Modbus Driver (RealFlow brand of devices).
- Emerson Fisher ROK driver (old) Enron Modbus.
- Sibling tags because shorter tag names can make for easier reading. (In existing applications, this feature will be disabled.)
- Fast tag browser feature is up to 50x faster than previously. Loading time is only noticeable when there’s more than 100,000 tags.
- View and copy the full tag name, unique ID from the configuration folder.
- Multi-factor identification for system-wide login. Wadden chimed in that it’s best to include the password in a known, safe location or one machine with a password code, secure but accessible during emergencies.
- SVG image file support – backward compatible to old images, but that doesn’t make older flat files vector images. Drag and drop as needed.
- Export sub tree tags are handy to work on tags outside on Microsoft Excel. It’s easier to export just what’s needed for exterior work.
- Context tag – right-click properties, properties tag is on the top, rather than bottom. (Applause.)
Time savings adds up with these and other new features in VTScada by Trihedral, Little said.
VTScada documentation is available in the VTScada Academy. What’s new, tips and more at https://www.vtscada.com/the-vtscada-academy.
Originally published by Mark T. Hoske, Control Engineering: New SCADA functionality: Improved communications, security, navigation – Control Engineering