Windows SCADA Processor for
Industrial and Real-time Environments

WINSPIRE is a supervisory control and data acquisition (SCADA) product built on the Windows platform. It finds application in areas such as power, oil and gas, and process control and automation.

With facilities for data logging, alarm reporting, recording of events and analysing the acquired data, WINSPIRE has standard interfaces to connect to remote terminal units (RTUs), programmable logic controllers (PLCs) and other equipment supporting OPC (open connectivity via open standards) servers, Modicon's modbus and other popular protocols.

It also maintains a database for a report generator and analysis of historical data at any time. This data is made available on the Web for wide access, including mobile devices. WINSPIRE comes with a configurator, allowing easy configuration for any solution.

SCADA configurator

WINSPIRE is equipped with a configurator to design the graphical user interface (GUI) for the project, configure field points on the selected device interfaces, define alarm limits, identify events and set the data logging frequency. It can create the GUI as pages for publishing on the web.

SCADA kernel

The SCADA kernel manages the field device interfaces, the configurator, data logging, alarms and events, and the OPC-client interface. It provides web services, database services (tools for data analysis), dynamic data exchange (DDE) services, etc.

SCADA services

WINSPIRE has features for alarm generation, trends, recipes, etc. (A trend is a pictorial representation of SCADA analog point data plotted against time. It can be viewed in line as well as bar-chart modes. A recipe is essentially a group / batch of process variables, each of which is assigned a value. It is used to initialise certain tags used in a process, before it actually gets started.)

Hardware interface

The application acquires data from various field devices like PLCs, RTUs, energy meters, trivectometers (TVMs), etc, for process control applications through various industry standard protocols.

Modbus: It has built-in drivers for protocols like modbus ASCII, RTU and transmission control protocol (TCP).

IEC: It a has built-in driver for IEC 870-5-101.

OPC client: It has built-in drivers complying with the OPC DA v2.05 standards.

DDE client: It has built in DDE client functionality.

Application integration services

Web services: Web services comprise a set of functions defined for the purpose of acquiring data (real-time and historical) from the host application. The application allows data display at the thin-client (browser-based SCADA console). Web services can be viewed as the application hooks of the SCADA data for the external world. This option allows functionality on different domain-specific applications.

DDE services: WINSPIRE acts like a DDE server for external applications. Any application acting as a DDE client that is configured to Winspire can receive the interfaces provided by the SCADA application.

OLE for process control (OPC) services: It acts like an OPC server for an external application. Any application acting as an OPC client that is configured to WINSPIRE can get the interfaces provided by the SCADA application.

Database services: WINSPIRE provides users the facility to log the data into the SQL Server 2000 relational database management service (RDMS). This enables the query and reporting of tag data, alarms and events using standard tools. It also facilitates statistical analysis using online analytic processing (OLAP) tools.

Utility services

Web publisher: Web publisher helps to create the requisite server pages and SCADA window pages for the browser-based console. This enables operator console and command operations on a thin client / thick client kept in the LAN or WAN.
WAP publisher: WAP publisher uses WINSPIRE's DDE server interfaces. Basically, the application is a DDE client that gets data from the SCADA application and publishes it in WML format for mobile and PDA consoles.
Quick viewer: Quick viewer browses through the project, gathers project information, and writes the configuration details into a file.

Utility services

Technical architecture, hardware and software platforms

Strengths

Benefits

Experience

Standard electric traction SCADA software (SETSS) is derived from WINSPIRE, and is the only product meeting the specifications of the Indian Railways. It has been evaluated and approved by the RDSO for traction SCADA.

Indicative client list

Standard electric traction SCADA software (SETSS) for:

Case study

Standard traction SCADA project for the Indian Railways' Lucknow-Kanpur section