Scada or DCS talks....?

Hi Guys

I have a funny one...

Can someone tell's me about the real difference from a real Scada and a Real DCS, my panels are always talking to a kind of computer based monitoring system and sometimes it get called "Scada" and sometimes "DCS"

On my head
Scada = computer without i/o'S
DCS = main monitoring with i/o cards

What about you guys think?

Hello Jeff;
The following artice, from SCADA Perspective, gives a better review of my opinion on the subject than I could write:
http://scadaperspective.com/pipermail/scada_scadaperspective.com/2008-February/000061.html

Quote:
Some of the confusion with SCADA and DCS is that the acronyms are rather meaningless today. That is, a DCS certainly does Supervisory Control and Data Acquisition (SCADA), while a SCADA system often implements a (form of a) Distributed Control System (DCS).

Hope this helps,
Daniel Chartier

thanks i wasn't too far...

But you know...i sell panel to mechanical guys that don't know much about controls and when i write "DCS" and a end user comes back saying it is a "Scada"...then "i'm wrong !" and when i write scada and another end user comes back with "DCS" word "i'm also wrong !" ...
I have no choice either than continuing changing my drawing to the end user flavor ...

If the only reason you're interested is for a drawings lable, why not just generically use "CONTROL"? Then it doesn't matter whether it's DCS, PLC, HMI, or SCADA...

OZEE said:

If the only reason you're interested is for a drawings lable, why not just generically use "CONTROL"? Then it doesn't matter whether it's DCS, PLC, HMI, or SCADA...

Click to expand...

Yes a generic term is a good idea but it is not so simple, i was joking about my drawings but it isn't the only thing...

We sometimes have customers that want's very fine details about everything...Another exemple is a request to change "1, 2, and 3" For "A,B and C" instead...!

But it is parts of the game...It helps to talk about it sometimes...

ABB Compact 800 is an example of a PLC/SCADA system that can be upgraded to a full ABB 800aX DCS. The controllers are the same in the DCS and in the PLC versions.
The real difference between DCS and PLC/SCADA is the marketing