Ignition SCADA

hi all
i ask about the ignition SCADA

it is strong or not and what is the advantages and disadvantages of it ??

its very powerful and super reliable.

too many advantages to list.

only disadvantages ive seen is the mobile module.

Impressive although not quite a finished product...Beta at the most...Revisions coming out every other month...The available documentation is primitive, unfinished and filled with errors/false statements...Limited and laggy Tech Support...And still, very impressive!

:site:

Hands down better than the rest!

dmargineau said:

Impressive although not quite a finished product...Beta at the most...Revisions coming out every other month...The available documentation is primitive, unfinished and filled with errors/false statements...Limited and laggy Tech Support...And still, very impressive!

:site:

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I think this evaluation is a bit harsh, v7.7 release makes it a complete product in my opinion. It has less quirks/bugs/issues then it's competitors (I'm looking at you Factory Talk View, and Wonderware InTouch/System Platform). They update their product quicker, respond to bugs and feature requests quicker and my experience with tech support is on-par with their competitors. Rockwell is the only one that I have seen that has a tech support that is more 'available', but don't confuse availability with talking with someone that actually knows that they are talking about.

Documentation is fairly dry, but the new Inductive University is like nothing else in the industry.

After using Ignition for the past year, I want nothing to do with other platforms. Ignition is fun and exciting to use, I have been able to create everything and more w/o much issue. The template repeater and canvas tools are unmatched by the competition. When I use FTView/WW I lothe the moment that I have to do something challenging because it simply takes the wind out of my sails and makes me question why I didn't go for that management position at McDonald's back in my high school years.

@Paully's5.0

Please don't take it the wrong way...Impressive still is impressive...and I agree that no other competitor comes even close...Vision/HMI is Vision/HMI, however their Relational DB Historian, OEE and SPC features in one software package are really unique in the industry...

But then a through-out available Right-Click Menu instead of CTRL-C/X, CTRL-V, etc. would be nice in year 2015; the "repair" of objects which change the Data Type of the handled data(??!!) is a must; the User Manual needs to be re-named Functionality Manual and they will need to create a true User one; the ESC key needs to always re-focus and the Undo should be available for all taken actions...
I could go on for a while, however, just like you have stated, I am planning to offer Ignition to all customers in need to update an existing or install a new SCADA system...There is no doubt in my mind that, at this time, there is nothing that could truly compete with Inductive Automation...

Well my company is in the middle of implementing ignition. What are integrators have showed us cant be matched with Rockwell software that we use now for data logging . Also you don't have to take down your data collection system just to make a change which is a big plus. You could go on and on about the pluses of ignition. We done even have it in play yet and I know it is a good move for our company. All software has it flaws and you will always have to update it. That is just the way of the world. Inductive Automation is changing the game and I am glad to be part of it!

Price which the openly post on there website
unlimited users
unlimited tags
Data collection
HMI/Scada screens
many different modules for your companies needs
did I say this before unlimited tags and unlimited users!

I have been using Ignition for a few years now. Even at its current state, which 7.7 is very, very good, I would use it over RSviewSE and Wonderware App Server if we had a choice, and I am a Wonderware App Server 2014 certified developer and Intouch 2014 certified as well.

dmargineau said:

Impressive although not quite a finished product...Beta at the most...Revisions coming out every other month...The available documentation is primitive, unfinished and filled with errors/false statements...Limited and laggy Tech Support...And still, very impressive!

:site:

Click to expand...

I definitely disagree. the software has been rock solid for us. Ive seen our servers run for 6 months at a time without having to restart. that definitely doesnt say "beta" to me. the few times that I have had issues they have promptly fixed them, sometimes within a couple of days. This isnt with small systems either, I am talking hundreds of thousands of tags.

I think the documentation could be better, but at the price point, I can live with it. I have found the support to be excellent. I usually get a call back within a few minutes and never more than 1 day later. they pass the issue on to the developers promptly and the fix, if not able to be done during the call, is usually promptly taken care of.

having dealt with other packages support, id put IA at the top. I also like the fact that I can actually post on a forum, get pricing, read a manual, download a fully functioning trial, etc without having to give my life story. Ive had vendors in the past that would even demo their software to me, just tell me about it. then wanted me to pay to become a developer and sell their product. with IA there is no nonsense like that.

As long as they keep the price point in the same ballpark as where they are now, I can live with some of the shortcomings in documentation. Like Paully said, I actually enjoying doing work with ignition because it is so flexible. i guess i am biased.

dmargineau said:

@Paully's5.0

Please don't take it the wrong way...

Click to expand...

Ok, I see where you are coming from but to say its in 'beta at most' implies that it's not ready for production use which is completely false. I would agree that there are environmental aspects that can use some polishing but all platforms need polishing. We all could list the things that Ignition, FTView, Wonderware...etc 'should' do but don't. The difference is that IA actively takes feedback, evaluates and implements valid suggestions.

Please put your items into the suggestion for improvements area and see what happens, you might be surprised. Now you can 'right-click, close all open windows' in the designer - requested by yours truly. You're welcome

Paully's5.0 said:

Ok, I see where you are coming from but to say its in 'beta at most' implies that it's not ready for production use which is completely false. I would agree that there are environmental aspects that can use some polishing but all platforms need polishing. We all could list the things that Ignition, FTView, Wonderware...etc 'should' do but don't. The difference is that IA actively takes feedback, evaluates and implements valid suggestions.

Please put your items into the suggestion for improvements area and see what happens, you might be surprised. Now you can 'right-click, close all open windows' in the designer - requested by yours truly. You're welcome

Click to expand...

Paul,
Been around the block quite a few times....
I my world, when an application "takes" a 4-byte REAL from a Logix CPU, maps it to a Float4 OPC Tag, "Transaction Groups" it to a SQL database into a "real" 4-byte database column but Drop Down List queries it as an 8-byte Float8(?!) then it's Beta at the most...
What else will change the most important attribute of a piece of data, the Data Type?!...It needs a page of script to prevent it happening!...7.7.3 still does it....
I hope I will never experience this again...Preserving Data Types is at the very core of every major automation software package...I hope Inductive Automation will take it very seriously...

dmargineau, that's interesting. I wonder why everyone at least use the same terminology. a 8-byte float is 64 bit float = double precision?

Everyone here use the term SCADA but to me strictly speaking SCADA is used for wide area control and supervisory only while HMI is used for local view and control. iFix, for example, while not my fav, does have a lot of functionality related to the very slow data rate that a true SCADA should have. It's still not clear how good Ignition is in that rule of a true SCADA.

@dmargineau

I'm curious, if you consider Ignition to be Beta at most and that no other competitor comes even close, then what do you consider the competitors to be? Pre-Beta? Alpha?

harryting said:

dmargineau, that's interesting. I wonder why everyone at least use the same terminology. a 8-byte float is 64 bit float = double precision?

Everyone here use the term SCADA but to me strictly speaking SCADA is used for wide area control and supervisory only while HMI is used for local view and control. iFix, for example, while not my fav, does have a lot of functionality related to the very slow data rate that a true SCADA should have. It's still not clear how good Ignition is in that rule of a true SCADA.

Click to expand...

what do you call slow? once per hour?

The electric utility SCADA systems I have worked with used DNP3 protocol and the remote devices or RTUs only send data on a heartbeat period of maybe 1 minute or when it has changed by more than a deadband. This allows them to know when the data is stale (no updates in over a minute) but also have up to date data when it is changing. These are features of DNP3 protocol not really specific to any one HMI or SCADA.

I am interested in ignition but so often we have to use the same software as what the customer already has at other facilities.

I detest tag-based licensing, it is an artificial constraint and not necessarily related to the size of the plant. I see people using individual bits in words as source for alarms or other boolean indications instead of creating a new tag in order to keep the tag count down. I find the Factory Talk View (ugh) licensing model of screen/display based to be a better model.

V0N_hydro said:

I detest tag-based licensing, it is an artificial constraint and not necessarily related to the size of the plant. I see people using individual bits in words as source for alarms or other boolean indications instead of creating a new tag in order to keep the tag count down. I find the Factory Talk View (ugh) licensing model of screen/display based to be a better model.

Click to expand...

Ignition is neither, the full version is totally unrestricted, unlimited tags, unlimited screens/displays, unlimited users, unlimited projects ETC. You can also have unlimited scan classes to enable full control of how fast data is collected. its worth a look.