Cheap Java SCADA on Linux

I was wondering why there are not (at least i dont know about many) many Java writen SCADA that can run on some reliable simple version of Linux. The other thing I was wondering is how hard can it be to write some SCADA software in Java with reasonable amount od communication drivers. What do you think about this idea?

I think you've got a great idea, but I also think it is not economically feasible. And if it were that easy, I guess we would have heard about some systems already.

There is however a SCADA system freely available here on this site, but it is made with Visual Basic Express. The number of drivers available is limited because most PLC manufacturers don't give the info needed to program a driver.

Kind regards,

You can also have a look at http://www.inductiveautomation.com/ . It's actually a web based scada . So you can cook it up in any where independent of OS you are running . But it is not free.

It should be relatively easy to write Java SCADA that uses OPC server. I think the main advantage is that it would be possible to use simple, small, fast, reliable Linux distribution.

@aradhonline Nice link and great idea

mango

http://mango.serotoninsoftware.com/

written in java, but no longer under active development, which is fine because it is stable and feature complete.

a fork which continues to have new features added such as OPC : http://www.scadabr.com.br/

You could use PHP... But its a really bad idea to have PHP communicating direct with a PLC as it can cause the page to take too long to load and what not.

I have been working on the Linux (Mono) compatible Communication DLL for Unitronics. I have also been working on my own "Online SCADA" system that is made up of three components.

1) IO Server - Communicates with all the field devices (Unitronics, Modbus, anything really). This Server runs as a daemon constantly polling the values from the Devices and
writing any values back to the Devices

2) Database - I personally use MySQL as my entire system runs on Linux. Basically MySQL is the place where all device values are stored, and any values to be written to a Device can be added to a table, similar to the idea of a "Write Queue"

3) Web Based GUI - I use a combination of PHP, AJAX (Javascript), JSON and HTML. PHP is used to firstly generate dynamic pages, and secondly to provide data as an API. AJAX is then used to pull information asynchronously (using JSON) from the PHP API and update data on the HTML page. And obviously HTML is used to design and layout the page (Along with CSS)

I don't have anything that you could simply use straight away, as my software is currently designed and setup for use with my Remote Monitoring System (www.concar.co.nz).

I will be working on this project during the rest of this year, and will hope to have something available near the end of this year. If you do a bit of software development yourself, and are interested in getting something like this working As Soon As Possible, then I may be able to help you customize the software to suit your needs.

Cheers

You can use the Ignition SDK and OPC-UA server, which gets you a lot of capability for free as a platform to write your own Java SCADA application. This gets you a pluggable web server, OPC-UA capability, network connectivity, JDBC database support, a GUI frameworks, mulithreaded support with NIO, an alerting framework, a "store and forward" data logging framework, a scripting and expression language, and more. All that is free to developers/users, which will provide a huge start over programming "from scratch". That said, it makes sense 99% of the time to buy some licensed version to develop your application. This is especially applicable if you grow into other feature sets like mobile (iPod/iPad, Android), reporting (dynamic PDF generation), MES/ERP, etc.

This is true in general of SCADA apps, be it Ignition, Wonderware, Rockwell, etc, over writing your own app from scratch in VB, Java, etc. If you're bent on free, check out GPL/LGPL projects like Archie's AdvancedHMI.

@Lade99 - sounds cool. I like projects like M0n0wall that use specialized instances of Linux/PHP/etc for useful tools. I ran such router for several years on old hardware. It rarely even needed a reboot.

HP/Verano RTAP Scada was originally a Linux only scada. we were the first to get an NT version of it.

I second Ignition by Inductive Automation. Has the fastest ControlLogix Ethernet/IP driver I have ever used (Destroys RSLinx, Kepware and Matrikon OPC servers).