SCADA — Supervisory Control and Data Acquisition

Programming and configuration guides for the main industrial SCADA systems on the market.

SCADA (Supervisory Control And Data Acquisition) systems are the nerve center of industrial supervision. They enable real-time process data acquisition, alarm management, historical data generation, and provide a global view of the plant from one or multiple stations.

Unlike HMIs (machine-oriented), SCADAs are designed to handle large volumes of data, distributed architectures (client/server, redundancy), and connectivity with multiple controllers and protocols.

In this section you will find practical guides for the main systems on the market: Wonderware/AVEVA (InTouch, System Platform, ArchestrA, Historian), Siemens WinCC (WinCC V7/V8, WinCC RT Professional, WinCC Unified), Rockwell (RSView32, FactoryTalk View SE, FactoryTalk Historian), Schneider (CitectSCADA, Vijeo Citect), COPA-DATA Zenon and others such as FIX32/iFix and TopKapi.

Each article covers driver configuration, communications, scripting (VBScript, ANSI C, VBA, Cicode), databases, ActiveX/.Net controls, user management, WebNavigator, redundancy and much more.

Wonderware / AVEVA

Wonderware was the leading name in industrial SCADA. Today, following the acquisition of Invensys by Schneider Electric, the commercial brand is AVEVA.

InTouch — the most widely used SCADA in industry. The latest available version is InTouch 2017 Update 3. For distributed projects with an object-oriented model, System Platform / ArchestrA is used.

InTouch Machine Edition (formerly InduSoft) is the machine-oriented version, currently known as AVEVA Edge HMI.

CitectSCADA — following Schneider's acquisition of Citect, it was renamed CitectSCADA. The latest available version is CitectSCADA 2018.

Schneider also maintained its own solutions: Monitor Pro, Vijeo Look, Vijeo Citect (same as CitectSCADA but with the Schneider name; no updates since 2015), PowerScada, ClearScada, and EcoStruxure Machine SCADA Expert (formerly Vijeo XL).

View Wonderware articles

Simatic Siemens

Siemens SCADA systems are grouped under the WinCC brand.

WinCC — the classic Siemens SCADA system, available as a standalone product in versions V7.x and V8.x.

WinCC RT Professional — the version integrated within TIA Portal, equivalent to classic WinCC but managed from the same engineering environment as S7-1200/1500 PLCs and HMIs.

View Siemens articles

Allen Bradley / Rockwell

Rockwell Automation SCADA systems have evolved from RSView32 to FactoryTalk View SE.

RSView32 — Rockwell's classic SCADA platform, whose last version was RSView32 V7.60.

FactoryTalk View Site Edition (SE) — the successor to RSView32 for distributed client/server architectures. The latest available version is FactoryTalk View SE V10.0.

View Rockwell articles

Schneider SCADA

Schneider Electric's own SCADA solutions, differentiated from those inherited from Wonderware.

Vijeo Citect — essentially the same product as CitectSCADA but with the Schneider name. No updates under this name since 2015.

Schneider also offers PowerScada for electrical distribution, ClearScada for distributed infrastructures (water, oil & gas), and EcoStruxure Machine SCADA Expert (formerly Vijeo XL), aimed at OEMs.

View Schneider articles

COPA-DATA Zenon

Independent HMI/SCADA platform by COPA-DATA.

Zenon Operator / Supervisor — development and runtime environment for HMI and SCADA applications. The latest available version is Zenon V8.0.

View Zenon articles

Other SCADAs

Other SCADA systems used in industry.

FIX32 / iFix — FIX32 was developed by Intellution, later acquired by GE Fanuc. The last version was FIX32 V7. Its successor is iFix, whose latest version is iFix V6.0.

Infilink HMI — a web-based SCADA system. The latest available version is Infilink HMI V5.00.41.

View other SCADAs