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As you'll quickly learn with any engineering application,
we live in a world of acronyms.
In industrial automation, SCADA stands for Supervisory Control And Data Acquisition.
As industrial automation professionals,
we use SCADA to integrate as much of an engineering process in a plant or facility
as possible into one easy-to-use software interface.
This software interface is used to control the process,
alert operators and managers of problem situations
and gather useful information along the way.
First, let’s talk about what Ignition is.
Inductive Automation first released its Ignition SCADA software in January 2010.
Since then, it has gained tremendous popularity among
industrial automation professionals.
Ignition is known for powerful and modern graphical objects,
its web-based architecture,
its unlimited licensing structure, and its developer-friendly tools.
Now you may ask what makes Ignition unique from other SCADA applications?
Ignition uses IT tools that are safely connected to the plant or facility’s network
to manage and launch industrial software applications.
Ignition is what is called ‘cross-platform’.
This means that it can be used on most standard computer operating platforms
such as **MAC OS X**, Windows, and Linux distributions.
Ignition is also able to handle many standard external devices and databases.
Ignition uses an unlimited licensing structure.
There is no limit to the number of tags, screens,
or client applications used to build a project.
There is also no limit on the number of engineers that can use the development tool.
This detail has engineers, operators, and owners excited about the software.
Ignition's application development tool is called Ignition Designer.
Designer has modern graphical objects built-in
and utilizes a popular and powerful programming language called
Python for their native scripting.
Scripting is used in SCADA applications to customize elements of the application
when a need is not native to the SCADA software.
Python is an open-source object-oriented programming language
that is among the most widely used programming languages today.
Now that we’ve learned what makes Ignition unique,
let’s dive into how Ignition works by talking about Ignition modules.
Ignition SCADA software is built and sold by modules.
There are a couple of Ignition modules that are essential.
The first is called "Ignition Platform".
This module includes tags, designer clients, and drivers
that allow you to connect to necessary devices and databases,
such as PLCs and SQL databases.
In this section, we'll cover Ignition's core modules.
Then we’ll mention some of their more advanced and even third-party modules.
An OPC UA Server module is also included with this module.
OPC UA stands for "Open Platform Communications United Architecture".
It is a standard industrial communication protocol
that allows different devices to communicate together.
Tags and databases are the backbones of a SCADA operation.
For example, let's think of a plant floor tank fitted with level,
temperature, or pressure transmitters.
Those transmitters send a raw data signal back to the PLC
which may have some form of scaling or other logical manipulation
and is stored as a "tag".
This tag is what ends up being used and displayed in a SCADA application.
Depending on your industrial application,
you can have hundreds or even thousands of tags or database points.
The next essential Ignition module is in the visualization category.
One of SCADA’s main functions is to visually display important plant operations and data
in a graphical user interface.
This interface can belong on an HMI out on the plant floor,
on several monitors in a control room, on an engineer’s laptop, or even a smartphone.
Ignition has two options for this.
There is the Vision module or the Perspective module.
The Vision module is Ignition’s classic visualization software
that they have been supporting for many years.
This module is designed to be used on desktop screens
and traditional plant floor HMIs.
The Perspective module is Ignition’s new and modern approach to visualization software.
It is fully web-based
which will allow you to launch your industrial application from
anywhere on a web browser
so long as you’re safely connected to the plant network.
Because of how it’s designed,
Perspective can be used on mobile devices such as tablets and smartphones.
You can also use what is called “kiosk mode”
for a more traditional feel that works well with control room monitors
and plant floor HMIs.
If you’re interested in Ignition’s most current and modern software,
Perspective is the way to go.
Other important modules include the Alarm Notification module,
the Tag Historian module, and the Reporting module.
Alarms and notifications are essential to a healthy industrial plant or facility.
As automation professionals, we use them to alert operators, engineers,
managers, and owners alike of any abnormal
or catastrophic situations to the engineering process.
You can use Ignition's Alarm Notification to set up
alarms and notifications on the local application,
and/or via email, phone call, or SMS text message.
Reporting in SCADA is a little different than alarming.
We habitually use reports to relay a given set of information about
the plant or process to relevant plant personnel.
You can use Ignition's Reporting module to automatically generate
and send data in a PDF format.
Oftentimes, it is important to take a look into the past
to troubleshoot issues at a plant.
In SCADA this is done by logging tag data into a database.
We can use this data to set up graphical trends of historical data.
This makes Ignition’s Tag Historian module an important one to use.
You can use this historical data together with a visualization module
or reporting module to stay on top of your industrial application.
We've covered the core modules that make Ignition SCADA work.
There are several other native Ignition modules,
partner modules to achieve advanced project-specific goals,
and even third-party modules developed by Ignition users like you and me.
Take a look at this full module layout.
Alright, let's summarize what we learned today.
We reviewed what SCADA means and how it is used in industrial applications.
We then learned what Ignition SCADA is
and what makes it unique from some other SCADA software.
After that, we took a deeper dive into how Ignition works to achieve modern SCADA
with its use of native, partner, and third-party modules.
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you will get a nice discount on Siemens PLC starter kits
when you become a RealPars Pro member.
After signing up, you will receive a promo code
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The PLC starter kit also includes lifetime access to the TIA Portal basic
which is the PLC programming software to program Siemens S7-1200 PLCs.
This means that you will be able to have both the hardware and the software
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Go to the RealPars learning platform and get your Pro membership now.
You can find the links in the video description as well.