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.

Features

	Open and distributed architecture
	Multi-protocol support to interface with a variety of field devices
	Powerful graphical tools for fast and rapid application development
	High user-level security
	User-friendly scripting support
	Data collection and data management
	Advanced alarm and events management
	Real-time and historical trends
	Database support using SQL / ODBC support
	WAP and Web-enabled clients
	Online HTML help for users

Technical architecture, hardware and software platforms
Hardware platforms

	Intel
	Xeon

Software platforms
MS Windows 2000 / 2003, VC++ 6.0, MFC, COM, DDE, MS .NET, web services, JAVA script, VML, industry standard protocols.

Strengths

	State-of-the-art technologies (SOAP, XML, .NET)
	Standard compliance (OPC, IEC, Modbus)
	Flexible application interface (web services, database services, DDE services)
	Field-proven device connectivity (Allan Bradley PLC, MIRI RTU, Electrix TVM)

Benefits

	Lower cost per site
	Reduction in maintenance costs
	Easy transferability of operators, leading to a reduction in operational costs
	Safety during power maintenance
	Savings in energy billing, by monitoring

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:

	Lucknow-Kanpur section (the first project in the Indian Railways following complete RDSO standardisation specification)
	Ludhiana-Amritsar section for NELCO
	Surat-Virar section for NELCO
	Dhanbad section for NELCO
	Multi-modal transit system, Hyderabad, India

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

Contact
CMC Ltd
CMC Centre
Old Mumbai Highway
Gachibowli, Hyderabad – 500 032
Tel: 91-40-23000401 / 501
Fax: 91-40-23000509