SCADA stands for Supervisory Control and Data Acquisition. In this article, I want to resolve all your confusion about What is SCADA | A complete Guide.
Introduction
Many of you are confused about Supervisory Control and Data Acquisition after reading many articles on this topic on the Internet. In this article, I am trying to completely resolve your doubts on this topic.
According to my latest article, you have clear knowledge about PLC and DCS.
If you have not visited my article then please check out my article on what is the difference between PLC and DCS.
Why there is Confusion about SCADA?
I am giving the Reason as per my experience why it is so confusing about Supervisory Control and Data Acquisition.
The reason is that when you are seeing the article on SCADA you will always find two types of explanations on this topic. You can always find an Explanation of Supervisory Control and Data Acquisition software in two meanings.
In this article, I want to give you an overall conclusion and clarification on Supervisory Control and Data Acquisition, so you will never be confused about SCADA.
What is SCADA?
Meaning – 1 | Beyond Plant Boundaries
If you read my previous article on PLC vs DCS or if you are an experienced person in the automation field you will already know that PLC and DCS are operating within Plant and Factory Floors.
According to the industry, some of the monitoring and control operations need to take the plant to a remote location or you can say Beyond plant boundaries.
The industry that required remote Monitoring and control includes Oil and Gas, Renewable, Water Treatment and Transmission, and Electricity Transmutation.
And there are many other industries like smart Railways and Transporation also require remote monitoring and control.
Smart Technology for Paris Tramway | Inductive Automation
For archive Monitoring and Control beyond Plant Boundaries and Factory Floor, it is used and this is the first meaning of Supervisory Control and Data Acquisition software that you can find in many articles on SCADA.
Meaning – 2 | SCADA as Software
In some of the articles, you can find another explanation of Supervisory Control and Data Acquisition and it is due to modern advancements in Personal Computers.
The processing power of a Personal Computer is Increased with time. Nowadays all the functions now operate on Personal Computer, Such as Operator Interface and process control.
Some companies have started providing a software solution for operator interface and process control and this software is now called SCADA software.
| Sr No. | Company | SCADA Software |
|---|---|---|
| 1 | Inductive Automation | Ignition SCADA |
| 2 | Tatsoft | Factory Studio |
| 3 | Siemens | WinCC |
| 4 | Rockwell Automation | Factory Talk |
| 5 | GE | iFix |
After this Supervisory Control and Data Acquisition has two different meanings one is Monitoring and Control over Distance and the other is SCADA as a software solution for Monitoring and Control.
EndNote: –
When you consider SCADA as a Monitoring and Control over a Large distance you have to also talk about Hardware and Software that Work as systems to achieve monitoring and control.
And When you Consider SCADA as software that has built-in Capabilities for operator Interface and Process control. SCADA software comes with its driver and Communication Capabilities to communicate with other hardware.
My conclusion is that when you find articles that relate to SCADA such as Monitoring and Control over large distances and explain RTU, MTU, and other Hardware it is an old technology when the spreading of the Internet is Limited.
Due to the increase in Communication capability because of the Spreading of the Internet SCADA software directly communicate with remote devices over the internet.
As per the Latest explanation, SCADA is Software that comes with its Operator Interface designing Capabilities.
And it also has many other features and it also has Drivers and Communication capabilities to communicate to remote locations.
