Remote support capabilities AB & Siemens

[XxLinkxX]

Hey everyone,I was wondering if the siemens and Allen Bradley have some sort of remote support for their devices(PLC & HMI). We have some clients that would like to have this in our systems, so I was wondering if anyone knew something more about this. I looked into ****, although i'm not sure if its something reliable, in terms of security. Although it does seem to support both siemens and allen Bradley and most if not all of their product family.
Any tips/recommendation would help.
Thanks,
Link

 

[JesperMP]

I guess you mentioned E w o n. The word is banned here for some reason.
There are quite many vendors with a similar product and functionality.

We are using E w o n for both AB and Siemens. I dont know of any of the current product lines of AB and Siemens that I are not supported. If the device supports TCP/IP, then you can get in touch with it.

We find it quite reliable and secure.
But I once read an analysis by some security expert who didnt find it safe enough though. Cant find that link now.

 

[DeKemp]

MBconnect, siemens teleservice, Remote engineer, Netbitter(same owners as E w o n). And there are a few more. Though one maybe better than the other.

 

[mk42]

On the Siemens side, they have a whole pile of VPN/security products. Look at the S600 family and Sinema RC, their rendezvous server. I know most of the PLC families have Ethernet communication modules that support VPNs as well.

On the AB side, I'm not super familiar with it, but I'd be shocked if they didn't have something available as part of their partnership with Cisco.

 

[XxLinkxX]

I guess you mentioned E w o n. The word is banned here for some reason.
There are quite many vendors with a similar product and functionality.

We are using E w o n for both AB and Siemens. I dont know of any of the current product lines of AB and Siemens that I are not supported. If the device supports TCP/IP, then you can get in touch with it.

We find it quite reliable and secure.
But I once read an analysis by some security expert who didnt find it safe enough though. Cant find that link now.

I didn't know that word was banned, im glad you picked up on it. I do apologize for using a banned word. What I like about it is that it supports both siemens and AB. It would make it easier to learn and just deal with one program, rather than learning one for siemens and one for AB. Thanks for the info jasper!

 

[XxLinkxX]

On the Siemens side, they have a whole pile of VPN/security products. Look at the S600 family and Sinema RC, their rendezvous server. I know most of the PLC families have Ethernet communication modules that support VPNs as well.

On the AB side, I'm not super familiar with it, but I'd be shocked if they didn't have something available as part of their partnership with Cisco.

They do have vpn as well. Atleast the ones we are using. Anytime you would use the internet, security seems to always be something to look into. Siemens does have a web server in the tia portal. Not sure if that could be used to troubleshoot some problems. I haven't looked into it yet.

 

[XxLinkxX]

MBconnect, siemens teleservice, Remote engineer, Netbitter(same owners as E w o n). And there are a few more. Though one maybe better than the other.

Hmm do you suggest one over the other? seems to be a lot of third party support.

 

[mk42]

I didn't know that word was banned, im glad you picked up on it. I do apologize for using a banned word. What I like about it is that it supports both siemens and AB. It would make it easier to learn and just deal with one program, rather than learning one for siemens and one for AB. Thanks for the info jasper!

What I heard was that it was banned as part of cleaning up some spam posts way back in the day, and got added to the profanity autofilter. It isn't banned in the sense that people mind you talking about it; you just need to be a little creative in your spelling

 

[mk42]

Hmm do you suggest one over the other? seems to be a lot of third party support.

Most VPN systems should support any communications. Unless the VPN solution is directly built into the programming software, it should support any kind of communications, third party or otherwise.

HOWEVER: doing a download over a remote VPN can be tricky. If the internet connection cuts out halfway through the download, your PLC or HMI could be stuck in an unknown state. I typically recommend having a PC installed locally that has the programming software (and licenses if possible), as well as the projects. That way I can use the VPN to remote desktop into the PC from anywhere, it doesn't even have to be my engineering laptop. If I lose the connection it is no big deal, because the important downloads are all done over the local PLC network, and I am just telling the programming computer what to do remotely.

It costs more up front, but that can usually be bundled in to service contracts. It pays for itself the first time a service guy would have had to fly halfway across the country for a 2 minute fix, and can instead remote in, diagnose the problem, and be on to his next task.

 

[XxLinkxX]

Most VPN systems should support any communications. Unless the VPN solution is directly built into the programming software, it should support any kind of communications, third party or otherwise.

HOWEVER: doing a download over a remote VPN can be tricky. If the internet connection cuts out halfway through the download, your PLC or HMI could be stuck in an unknown state. I typically recommend having a PC installed locally that has the programming software (and licenses if possible), as well as the projects. That way I can use the VPN to remote desktop into the PC from anywhere, it doesn't even have to be my engineering laptop. If I lose the connection it is no big deal, because the important downloads are all done over the local PLC network, and I am just telling the programming computer what to do remotely.

It costs more up front, but that can usually be bundled in to service contracts. It pays for itself the first time a service guy would have had to fly halfway across the country for a 2 minute fix, and can instead remote in, diagnose the problem, and be on to his next task.

Yea I do agree with that. Although I feel at the same time this will cause unnecessary tech support of trivial things.