Architecture

AggreGate SCADA/HMI is heavily based on AggreGate Platform. Most of its functions are derived from the underlying framework.

Technically, the SCADA/HMI solution is a set of device drivers and plugins extending AggreGate Platform.

Below is the list of AggreGate Platform manual sections that are highly relevant to the SCADA/HMI solution:

No Development and Runtime Environments

Unlike traditional SCADA systems, AggreGate SCADA/HMI has unified environment used for development, debugging, testing and normal operation. There are no separate "development" and "runtime" modules to install.

The core of the system is AggreGate Server. The server maintains connection with the database that is used for storing system configuration, HMI templates, properties of PLCs, cached channel/tag values, and historical trend data.

The server communicates with controllers, sensors and actuators via dedicated device drivers. While present-day controllers tend to perform the near-real-time operations according to their own logic, AggreGate SCADA/HMI allow the server to initiate some control operations that may be guided by custom scripts or actions.

No Projects

AggreGate SCADA/HMI does not have projects. According to its primary concept, a single "primary" server is deployed at the production facility. During the initial phase of deployment, system engineers can connect to the server locally or remotely to build HMIs, create PLC accounts, set up data storage, etc. When the initial system configuration is finished, the same server is used in normal operation mode. No migration or switching to the production environment is required.

If a certain system change is required during normal operation, it's very easy to:

The whole AggreGate SCADA/HMI database may be backed up and restored at any time.

I/O Channels and Tags

In terms of AggreGate SCADA/HMI, I/O Channels (Tags) are called Device Settings (or Device Variables). These settings may be either scalar or array/tabular.

Due to the data normalization technology used by AggreGate Platform's unified data model, value of every I/O channel (tag), even scalar one, is represented by a so-called Data Table. This technology greatly increases flexibility of AggreGate SCADA/HMI by allowing any kind of data (both raw device data and pre-processed data) to be handled by any system component. Finally, this helps to build complex multi-level data processing chains and allow external systems to access any kind of data flowing in the system.