SCADA / Sensor Data Sharing

The Energy & Utilities industry widely uses Supervisory Control and Data Acquisition (SCADA) systems to support processing plant operations and monitoring. The SCADA information is very useful to know the plant operating state at any point in time and how it has been changing over time.

The SCADA data is provided from the sensors and instruments in real time to the process control system and its operators. Others in the organization could also benefit from receiving the SCADA data in near real-time for the purposes of operational support activities or timely analysis and feedback to the plant operators.

It is common for the analysis and support groups to be located outside the processing plant electronic security perimeter. Consequently, the SCADA/sensor data needs a secure path from the processing plant control system across the electronic security perimeter to the networks supporting the engineering and analysis teams. Since the operational support groups need the production SCADA/sensor data in near real-time, a direct route that does not stop in an intermediate data historian may be necessary.

The typical SCADA/sensor data needed in near real-time is MODBUS, OPC, or other similar protocols carrying the needed values to a destination data historian or other application. Owl Computing applications interface with the selected SCADA/sensor devices or intermediate Programmable Logic Controller (PLC) to discover the desired data and transfer it using its one-way DualDiode® Technology across the electronic security perimeter to the destination data historian or other application in near real-time. Other Owl Computing applications can monitor traffic on the plant process control network and select the information desired to transfer to the destination network utilizing the Owl one-way DualDiode Technology.

These Owl computing interface applications are designed to be vendor independent so an individual Owl Computing product can be used in a multi-vendor environment. Also, the data historian can either be on the same network or on a network across the electronic security perimeter.