SCADA (Supervisory Control and Data Acquisition)
What is SCADA (Supervisory Control and Data Acquisition)?
SCADA is a supervisory control architecture for monitoring and controlling geographically distributed industrial assets using central control software, remote field devices, and telemetry networks.
Examples
- A water utility supervises dozens of remote pump stations and reservoirs from a central control room, starting pumps and adjusting setpoints over radio links.
- A pipeline operator monitors pressure and flow along hundreds of kilometers, issuing remote open/close commands to valves via cellular and leased-line communications.
Discover 🔎
SCADA systems connect a central control center to remote industrial assets. Operators view live data, acknowledge alarms, and issue high-level commands, while local controllers or RTUs execute the detailed logic. SCADA favors wide-area, intermittent, and bandwidth-limited communications, so reliability and availability are prioritized alongside safety.
Summary 📝
SCADA supervises dispersed industrial assets via a central master, remote outstations, and constrained telemetry networks. Security must preserve safety and availability while adding strong boundaries, authenticated communications, governed remote access, and protocol-aware monitoring. Good inventories, segmentation, and reliable offline backups keep disturbances from becoming outages.
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