1. INTERNATIONAL ISLAMIC UNIVERSITY
CHITTAGONG
DEPT. OF ELECTRICAL AND ELECTRONICS ENGINEERING
Power System Operation and Contro
EEE-4875
PRESENTATION ON
SUPERVISORY CONTROL AND DATA ACQUISITION
(SCADA)
Presented by
Towfiqur Rahman
ET091010
8th Semester
2. OBJECTIVES:
• To discuss the concept of SCADA and its branches
• Protection for SCADA
• Future of SCADA
4. WHAT IS SCADA?
SCADA stands Supervisory Control and Data Acquisition. As the name indicates, it is not a full control
system, but rather focuses on the supervisory level. It is a computer system for gathering and analyzing real
time data.
SCADA systems can be relatively simple, such as one that monitors environmental conditions of a small
office building, or incredibly complex, such as a system that monitors all the activity in a nuclear power
plant or the activity of a municipal water system.
SCADA systems are used to monitor and control a plant or equipment in industries such as
telecommunications, water and waste control, energy, oil and gas refining and transportation. A SCADA
system gathers information, such as where a leak on a pipeline has occurred, transfers the information back
to a central site, alerting the home station that the leak has occurred, carrying out necessary analysis and
control, such as determining if the leak is critical, and displaying the information in a logical and organized
fashion.
6. MAIN FUNCTIONS OF SCADA:
• Data acquisition,
• Alarms and event monitoring,
• Database and data logging,
• Operator interface,
• Non real time control,
• Logging,
• MMI (men- machine interface) use,
• Automation, and
• Report generation
7. CONTROLLING PROCESSES :
• Industrial processes include those of manufacturing, production, power
generation, fabrication, and refining, and may run in continuous, batch,
repetitive, or discrete modes.
• Infrastructure processes may be public or private, and include water treatment
and distribution, wastewater collection and treatment, oil and gas pipelines,
electrical power transmission and distribution, wind farms and large
communication systems.
• Facility processes occur both in public facilities and private ones, including
buildings, airports, ships, and space stations. They monitor and control HVAC,
access, and energy consumption
8. COMPONENTS OF SCADA
o HMI (Human Machine Interface): It is an apparatus that is operated by
human to monitor and control various processes.
o PLC (Programmable Logic Controller): This controller is used because they
are very flexible, and economical than Remote Terminal Units
o Supervisory System: It collects process data and sends control commands to
the process.
o RTU (Remote Terminal Units): This process is connected with sensors to
convert sensor signals into digital and sends digital data to Supervisory
System
o Communication Infrastructure: It is connecting Supervisory System to RLU’s.
9. SCADA systems have evolved in parallel with the growth and sophistication of modern computing
technology. The following sections will provide a description of the following three generations of
SCADA systems:
10. First generation: Monolithic System; when SCADA systems were first
developed, the concept of computing in general centered on “mainframe” systems.
Networks were generally non-existent, and each centralized system stood alone. As a
result, SCADA systems were standalone systems with virtually no connectivity to
other systems. Wide Area Networks were later designed by RTU vendors to
communicate with the RTU. The communication protocols used were often
proprietary at that time. The first-generation SCADA system was redundant since a
back-up mainframe system was connected at the bus level and was used in the event
of failure of the primary mainframe.
12. Second generation: Distributed; the next generation of SCADA systems
took advantage of developments and improvement in system miniaturization and
Local Area Networking (LAN) technology to distribute the processing across
multiple systems. Multiple stations, each with a specific function, were
connected to a LAN and shared information with each other in real-time. These
stations were typically of the mini-computer class, smaller and less expensive
than their first generation processors.
14. Third generation: Networked; The current generation of SCADA master station
architecture is closely related to that of the second generation, with the primary
difference being that of an open system architecture rather than a vendor controlled,
proprietary environment. There are still multiple networked systems, sharing master
station functions. There are still RTUs utilizing protocols that are vendor-proprietary. The
major improvement in the third generation is that of opening the system architecture,
utilizing open standards and protocols and making it possible to distribute SCADA
functionality across a WAN and not just a LAN.
16. SECURITY ISSUES:
The following are TSI’s (The Security Institute, a United Kingdom based professional body for security professionals)
recommendations to address some lingering security issues for SCADA:
1. Security of network communications: Implementation of strong encryption over the SCADA network
communications, to ensure that both monitored data and control commands are encrypted.
2. Turning on security: Implementation of security features with devices on the network, especially authentication.
Using secure protocols whenever possible.
3. Knowing your SCADA network: Identifying all connections to external networks including wire-less
networks, corporate LANs and WANs, and the Internet. Also, securing the network by eliminating all unnecessary
connections to external networks.
4. Hardening of the SCADA environment: Removing all unnecessary services from the hosts on the network. Also, just
as in the corporate network environment, ensuring that all systems are patched and up to date.
5. Conducting regular security audits: Ensuring that security practices and procedures, such as incident response, are
defined and implemented. Penetration testing of the network environment should also be prudently conducted
with inspection for potential back doors into the SCADA network.
6. Implementing real-time threat protection: With the increasing number and complexity of attacks, it's insufficient to
simply patch the systems or maintain access/service control. One alternative is to implement real-time threat
protection in the form of network intrusion-prevention systems. Unlike standard packet-filter firewalls, these
systems perform application-layer inspection to identify attacks that are carried in the payload and block the
offending traffic in real time.
17. THE FUTURE OF SCADA SYSTEM:
The large territories and huge volumes of data SCADA can handle form a formidable
combination. Today’s SCADA systems can manage anything from a few thousands to
one million of input/output channels.
The technology is still evolving in terms of sophistication as well. SCADA systems as
they are now can perform a large variety of tasks and some systems have artificial
intelligence built into them. They are also more network-enabled, thus paving the way
for voice-data-control data convergence. With proper planning and a custom-made
installation, a SCADA system becomes a valuable asset.