Inductive Automation Rant

curlyandshemp · May 10, 2016

</Rant ON>

Believe me I have been an Inductive Automation flag waver since 2010, I love the software ,but lately I am seeing an ugly trend .

IA always have boasted how they have a one price fits all without the yearly support licensing fees imposed by the other HMI/SCADA companies that are out there.

Well, that is not entirely true. IA have a program called Upgrade Protection Plan which is usually 15% of the cost of an Ignition License per site to ensure that any upgrades or legacy issues are covered by an upgrade.

If you purchase the full blown version of Ignition, that means you need to pay about $2500 a year to ensure that your are entitled to get a fix for any Ignition bug that pops up 1 or 2 years after you purchase the software.

Reason I am ranting about this, today I was informed by my IA account manager, that I need to pay $7K to upgrade an IA 7.6 license to V7.7 to resolve an issue with the CompactLogix/Contrologix driver.

I have been constantly contacting IA support since the initial install in 2014 about PLC comm issues and have support tickets opened with IA support since day 1, but because my end user has not paid the $2500 per year Upgrade Protection plan, they are not entitled to get an updated V7.7 PLC driver module that would fix the day 1 problem, so the upgrade is 65% of the cost of the original license.

How the heck am I supposed to sell to a customer that IA finally have a fix for your issue that they have complained about since day 1 of the install, but it will cost $7K ?

Last month I received a recall notice from my car manufacturer about a defect found in my 2011 vehicle, that the car manufacturer will cover at no charge to me, to fix an issue the vehicle has had from day 1 even though my warranty expired years ago.

</Rant OFF>

Ronnie Sullivan · May 11, 2016

As we say in the UK, they are taking the Pis$

Chris Taylor · May 11, 2016

I too am a great fan of Ignition, but I have never used their drivers, I found them too restrictive when I first started. it increased my development time so I just brought Kepware.

That aside, they might want to rethink that decision, one of their companies "pillars" is customer support, and its not as if you want the most current version.

Here in the blessed EU I'm so-posed to warrant any software against defects for 12 months, so I have to buy support for the first year.

JesperMP · May 11, 2016

Chris Taylor said:
Here in the blessed EU I'm so-posed to warrant any software against defects for 12 months, so I have to buy support for the first year.

You could just do (as many does) gamble that there will be no need for support within that year and not buy any subscription. If then there IS a need for support, you will have to buy at full cost. At least you have the choice.

That being said, I find it appalling that some vendors charges for bug-fixes.
Paying for software updates (by subscription or at full cost) should only be required if there is added new features, not for fixing errors in the software.
Some vendors (most vendors, I believe) do NOT charge for bug fixes.
I dont understand why endusers are not more vocal about this.
The cost of support has been discussed many times before, and I have many times expressed my opinion, that basic support and bug-fixes should be free of charge. But I have a feeling that I am in the minority when it comes to this.

AustralIan · May 11, 2016

So what we are saying is that instead of each paying £10k per server for scada, we each pay £5k to some sort of free and open source software SCADA.. Then profit?

JesperMP · May 11, 2016

AustralIan said:
So what we are saying is that instead of each paying £10k per server for scada, we each pay £5k to some sort of free and open source software SCADA.. Then profit?

Not sure if that is aimed at me, but that is not what I am saying.

Archie · May 11, 2016

JesperMP said:
That being said, I find it appalling that some vendors charge for bug-fixes.
Paying for software updates (by subscription or at full cost) should only be required if there is added new features, not for fixing errors in the software.
Some vendors (most vendors, I believe) do NOT charge for bug fixes.
I dont understand why endusers are not more vocal about this.
The cost of support has been discussed many times before, and I have many times expressed my opinion, that basic support and bug-fixes should be free of charge. But I have a feeling that I am in the minority when it comes to this.

I completely agree with this. Car manufacturers do not tell you that you need to trade in your car for the latest model nor buy an extended warranty in order to take care of a recall issue. Software companies should own up to their bugs and provide fixes at no cost.

AustralIan · May 11, 2016

Not sure if that is aimed at me, but that is not what I am saying.

It was aimed at we the community.

For the same reason that we usually give the PLC code and SCADA configuration out for projects, I think a FOSS SCADA would be a good idea. It would mean that the integrator could charge for the support, and either pay a programmer to fix the bugs or fix it themselves. No more "well, it is a bug and we have to wait for the SCADA company to get round to fixing it, but it probably won't happen because you're not a big customer.." No more "that product is no longer supported and that's that." It needs a big enough market to be viable though, but maybe a large integrator could do it themselves.

I am also conscious of what the IoT industry are doing in this regard, and in a way I fear that they will overtake us in the traditional SCADA/PLC industry.

diat150 · May 11, 2016

curlyandshemp said:
</Rant ON>

Believe me I have been an Inductive Automation flag waver since 2010, I love the software ,but lately I am seeing an ugly trend .

IA always have boasted how they have a one price fits all without the yearly support licensing fees imposed by the other HMI/SCADA companies that are out there.

Well, that is not entirely true. IA have a program called Upgrade Protection Plan which is usually 15% of the cost of an Ignition License per site to ensure that any upgrades or legacy issues are covered by an upgrade.

If you purchase the full blown version of Ignition, that means you need to pay about $2500 a year to ensure that your are entitled to get a fix for any Ignition bug that pops up 1 or 2 years after you purchase the software.

Reason I am ranting about this, today I was informed by my IA account manager, that I need to pay $7K to upgrade an IA 7.6 license to V7.7 to resolve an issue with the CompactLogix/Contrologix driver.

I have been constantly contacting IA support since the initial install in 2014 about PLC comm issues and have support tickets opened with IA support since day 1, but because my end user has not paid the $2500 per year Upgrade Protection plan, they are not entitled to get an updated V7.7 PLC driver module that would fix the day 1 problem, so the upgrade is 65% of the cost of the original license.

How the heck am I supposed to sell to a customer that IA finally have a fix for your issue that they have complained about since day 1 of the install, but it will cost $7K ?

Last month I received a recall notice from my car manufacturer about a defect found in my 2011 vehicle, that the car manufacturer will cover at no charge to me, to fix an issue the vehicle has had from day 1 even though my warranty expired years ago.

</Rant OFF>

yeah I think you got caught in the middle. 7.6 was not determined to have the long term support. Im not sure why that is, but I would use the fact that 7.5 is still actively supported as my argument. they should have fixed this issue for 7.5, so if you could fix it for 7.5, why cant you port it up to 7.6.... especially a driver issue. I would definitely take a look at the change logs for the 7.5 driver and see if they fixed the issue you are having for the 7.5 version of the driver.

https://support.inductiveautomation.com/?/iaenhancements/Policy/Index

it may be cheaper for you to go with kepware's driver. it should be pretty easy for you to recreate the devices in kepware then write a script to replace the opcitem path for each of your tags.

Paullys50 · May 11, 2016

Just curious, which version of 7.7 fixes the bug? I was looking through the change notes and it didn't seem like there were many bug fixes except for the v21 driver. The one that wasn't too obvious to me for the older driver is the 7.7.8 "Fixed NPE that can happen when creating system map" I'm not sure what NPE is, and I could see that mapping tags to SLC/PLC5/Miro styles could bugger things up, so something to do with that?

I think it is fair to say that having to remain in support to get software updates is pretty normal in the industry. Every version of software addresses bugs from the previous revisions so you take a gamble if you don't get the yearly support. And if you decide to upgrade after not paying for support you pay a good price to do so, not full price, but they still get you. I don't see this being much different from the other guys. Why wasn't the customer paying for support?

The irritation here is that they have known about it since day 1, and I agree that IA can do better. But I also wonder the overall customer impact of this bug. For you it's quite large, but is there something unique in your setup? How many other installations does this affect? 10? 1000?

When I was first trying out IA for a large project there was a mis-communication in the licensing required for the Recipe Module and how it required MES tracking points and such. The impact was that the original concept was going cost substantially more than I had anticipated and it priced itself out of contention (I built my own recipe management features). I was quite surprised how far IA was willing to go to try to rectify the situation, it include a substantial discount to the MES tracking points I needed. I would take it up the food chain.

curlyandshemp · May 11, 2016

It is not just the plc drivers, this install also has the issue where the internal database swells to almost 100% of the available RAM, then shrinks down to 10% at regular intervals. I built an Easy Chart to trend this to prove to IA support.

diat150 · May 11, 2016

I think your best bet is to argue about 7.6 not having lts and 7.5 and 7.7 having it.

cbuysse · May 11, 2016

Paully's5.0 said:
When I was first trying out IA for a large project there was a mis-communication in the licensing required for the Recipe Module and how it required MES tracking points and such. The impact was that the original concept was going cost substantially more than I had anticipated and it priced itself out of contention (I built my own recipe management features). I was quite surprised how far IA was willing to go to try to rectify the situation, it include a substantial discount to the MES tracking points I needed. I would take it up the food chain.

I just went through the process of purchasing the MES module and the good news (maybe partly because of your experience) is that IA has gone away from "tracking points". Their new structure is either a "Site" license or a "Machine" license.

I agree IA has some work to do on their support pricing and "bug fixing" availability. You shouldn't have to pay for an upgrade to fix a bug. That said, I don't know that they're any worse in that regard than are most of the big names that we're all familiar with. And in general I'd rather work with their product than any of those big name products I've had the (dis)pleasure of working with before.

arlenjacobs · May 11, 2016

AustralIan said:
For the same reason that we usually give the PLC code and SCADA configuration out for projects, I think a FOSS SCADA would be a good idea. It would mean that the integrator could charge for the support, and either pay a programmer to fix the bugs or fix it themselves. No more "well, it is a bug and we have to wait for the SCADA company to get round to fixing it, but it probably won't happen because you're not a big customer.." No more "that product is no longer supported and that's that." It needs a big enough market to be viable though, but maybe a large integrator could do it themselves.

That's funny, because I though that was the story of Inductive Automation.
Didn't they start as an Integrator, frustrated with the big SCADA companies, and then created their own SCADA?

Fact: software development is expensive.
Updating and fixing software over many years is REALLY expensive.
It doesn't surprise me that they are finding new ways to get more money.

I would lay it out plain and simple for IA:
(1) patch 7.6 for free
(2) or, give us 7.7 for free
The big SCADA vendors would do either one.

EDIT: If you want to step up the heat, email them a link to this thread. This forum loves IA; they need to return the favour.
Maybe even this one too
http://www.plctalk.net/qanda/showthread.php?t=102683

harryting · May 11, 2016

IMO, there is version upgrade and there are bug fixes.

Even GE put out iFix bug fixes (SIMS) for free for now.

It's also on the end-user to "right-size" the HMI requirement. We got quite a few $10k HMI running a screen or two. A tiny panelview or redlion can do that.

Inductive Automation Rant

curlyandshemp

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Ronnie Sullivan

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Chris Taylor

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JesperMP

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AustralIan

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JesperMP

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Archie

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AustralIan

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diat150

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Paullys50

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curlyandshemp

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diat150

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cbuysse

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arlenjacobs

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harryting

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