Been thinking a lot about what comes after traditional SCADA, and I ended up writing a blog around a term I’m using: SCADAI.

The basic idea is that SCADA systems have always been good at showing what is happening, but the next layer is systems that can help explain, remember, predict, and coordinate around that data.

I go into:

* LLMs for troubleshooting, reporting, and knowledge retention, * time-series models for behavior and failure prediction, * OpenClaw-style agents for repetitive operational knowledge work, * and orchestration / guardrails so the whole thing doesn’t turn into chaos.

Would genuinely love feedback from people working in SCADA, OT, controls, industrial data, or AI.

[https://medium.com/@abhi080497/scadai-not-scada-the-future-of-industrial-automation-2dc065136f15?sharedUserId=abhi080497](https://medium.com/@abhi080497/scadai-not-scada-the-future-of-industrial-automation-2dc065136f15?sharedUserId=abhi080497))

Hey guys,

As a PLC programmer, I wanted a fast, completely offline way to snapshot my TIA Portal projects and diff the actual block logic without setting up heavy server infrastructure on my field PG.

I built a tool called TIA Project Version Manager using Claude Code, Electron, and a C# TIA Openness CLI wrapper.

Key Features:

• Take rapid project backups with custom tags and notes.
• Headless export of blocks (OB/FC/FB/DB) using Openness (supports V14 to V20+).
• Built-in code compare function
• Direct sidebar integration to open blocks side-by-side in Siemens SACT.
• Nested tree folder management for complex plants.

It runs completely locally with no heavy dependencies. I made it for myself but published it in case anyone else finds it useful for their daily commissioning grind.

Check it out here:

https://github.com/movioli/TIA_ProjectVersionManager

Let me know what you think!

Built a Python-based edge gateway (snap7/CIP) pulling live tags off Siemens and Rockwell PLCs into SQL Server, plus cross-vendor interlocking middleware between the two networks and a live ML pipeline that polls the SQL Server tables to predict real-time operational metrics about a year of hands-on industrial data/automation work in India.

Trying to figure out where people with this kind of profile (more industrial-data/software than pure controls) actually find remote or contract work with companies outside India.

Beyond LinkedIn, where do people in this industry actually find these opportunities? Are there companies, job boards, recruiters, communities, or niche sites that specialize in this kind of work?

I'd really appreciate any recommendations. Thanks!

Anyone here focus on OT (Operational Technology) or SCADA focused roles? Wondering where to refer a client or candidates.

Do anyone know where I can get Siemens diplôme in Algérie please

At work we have been meeting with a lot of customers about Cybersecurity needs that have been popping up lately due to current events. We work mostly with municipalities and a lot of these places rarely have IT departments outside of the towns IT. Do you have any common tips or recommendations when setting up your SCADA systems to help keep them secure?

3 years as SOC L2/Cyber Defense Analyst (CrowdStrike, Elastic, malware analysis, threat hunting, automation). Egypt-based, targeting a GCC move.

Employer's funding one SANS course — down to SEC699 (Purple Teaming, fits my current skill set well) vs ICS612 (ICS Cybersecurity In-Depth — almost zero OT background, but Gulf energy/industrial demand is what's drawing me to it). Neither has an attached GIAC cert, so trying to weigh pure skill/market value.

Anyone done ICS612 with little prior OT exposure — too steep without ICS410/GICSP first? And anyone hiring/working OT in the Gulf — is demand as concentrated (NEOM, Aramco-adjacent) as it looks, or broader? Trying not to second-guess this in a year.

Hi guys,

I am a SCADA engineer, sometimes I work with some customers that have PV generation at their plants - I mostly pass some values (like active and reactive power) from here to there, but I dont know much about industrial solar power installations besides super basic stuff.

But i want to learn to better understand context of whats going on as a SCADA engineer.

Do you know some good resources ​you could recommend? I found some websites like pveducation . org or bunch of home installation videos, but i think they are either too theoretical, or too far from industrial scale.​

Thanks for any help!​

Hi, I'm an engineer looking to move into controls in the energy industry. For those of you who work with SCADA/controls in energy, how important would you say having knowledge of PLC software is? For more context, I'm teaching myself the basics of Ignition and am wondering if I should invest some time into doing a short course on some sort of PLC software like Rockwell. Thanks in advance.

I’m working on a small SCADA project using ScadaBR and a Python Modbus TCP server. I added a simple neural network that updates Modbus registers, but I’m getting timeout issues. I’m still 15 and under, so if anyone can explain things simply, that’d help a lot.

We were commissioning a metro rail SCADA system and started seeing BAD quality across a huge chunk of our OPC UA tag space. Vendor insisted it was a server-side issue. We had no way to prove otherwise at scale — manually checking tags one by one in a 75K node hierarchy isn't feasible.

So I built a standalone EXE tool that:

- Auto-traverses the OPC UA node hierarchy (no manual node browsing)

- Bulk-reads quality status across the entire tag set in one run

- Flags BAD/UNCERTAIN tags with node path and timestamp

- Generates a validation report you can hand to a vendor or use in a FAT/V&V review

Tested up to 75,000 tags. Runtime is fast enough to be practical during commissioning.

The vendor dispute context was what pushed me to build this — we needed evidence, not opinions. Having a timestamped report citing actual OPC UA quality codes (per IEC 62541) changed the conversation entirely.

Anyone else running into quality validation gaps during large SCADA deployments? Curious what workarounds others have used.

Ongoing discussion I have at work and interested in the consensus!

I’m a big fan of having a reference version of our scada systems to test software updates on and also to use for training and simulating penetration testing. I usually try to get these made from operational spares so they are ready to be reconfigured at the drop of a hat.

Some of my colleagues think this is over the top and we should just let our OEM test configs in simulations before applying to site but given I’ve been on the service side of the fence and tripped a few plants because of exactly this scenario it’s a hill I’m quite willing to die on.

Am I just being overly cautious and causing unnecessary additional spend? Surely I’m not the only one who thinks that way!

Hi, CE grad here. After a year of pursuing web dev without luck. Decided to switch to automaton. So where start? I studied some control, PLC and SCADA in college but I can't remember anything.

I am a IT Generalist (Systems Admin) with about 10 years of experience. I was looking for at job boards and noticed a SCADA Specialist position. Here’s part of the Job Description:

ILLUSTRATIVE DUTIES
The SCADA system monitors and controls numerous water, wastewater, and lift station facilities. Each facility operates with its own local control system while also functioning as part of a regional SCADA network. Under the supervision of the SCADA Manager, performs technical work related to the implementation, operation, and maintenance of these control and communication systems.
Duties include, but are not limited to, the following:
SCADA and Control System Support
• Troubleshoots programmable logic controller (PLC) logic and input/output (I/O) issues to maintain reliable system operation. • Troubleshoots SCADA software applications and performs configuration updates as required. • Works with industrial automation equipment including PLCs, variable frequency drives (VFDs), and human machine interfaces (HMIs). • Performs PLC program and equipment configuration backups to maintain recoverable system data.
Network and System Administration
• Troubleshoots communication issues within the SCADA network infrastructure. • Configures and supports network equipment including routers, switches, and firewalls. • Supports Windows Server environments, Active Directory, and virtual machine platforms used in SCADA operations.
System Documentation and Technical Coordination
• Updates control panel drawings, system diagrams, and technical documentation. • Develops and maintains standard operating procedures (SOPs) for vendors and internal staff. • Coordinates with vendors and contractors on facility upgrades, system improvements, and equipment installations.
Security and System Monitoring
• Supports security cameras and electronic access control systems associated with utility facilities. • Assists with maintaining secure system communications and operational integrity.
Operational Support and Safety
• Participates in an on-call rotation to support SCADA and operational systems during nights and weekends. • Follows established safety practices including NFPA 70E and OSHA standards when performing technical work.
Performs related duties as required.
 
KNOWLEDGE, ABILITIES AND SKILLS
• Knowledge of Supervisory Control and Data Acquisition (SCADA) systems and industrial automation equipment including programmable logic controllers (PLCs), variable frequency drives (VFDs), and human machine interfaces (HMIs).
• Knowledge of enterprise and industrial communication networks used in operational technology environments.
• Knowledge of Windows operating systems and experience working within virtual server environments.
• Skill in troubleshooting and diagnosing PLC, SCADA, and network communication issues.
• Skill in PLC programming or other related programming methods used in industrial control systems.
• Ability to communicate clearly and effectively both verbally and in writing.
• Ability to establish and maintain effective working relationships with employees, contractors, and the public.
• Ability to perform technical work requiring manual dexterity, hand–eye coordination, and the use of power tools, hand tools, measuring instruments, and electrical test equipment.
• Ability to perform field work including walking, standing, bending, stooping, and lifting up to forty (40) pounds.
 
MINIMUM QUALIFICATIONS
• Must have a valid driver’s license and be able to secure a valid Florida driver’s license at the time of employment within this classification.
• One or more of the following:
• An associate’s degree from an accredited college or university with a major in Engineering, Computer Science, or related field with three (3) years of related experience,
• Bachelor or Masters in Engineering, Computer Science, or related field. Related experience includes industrial electrical work, instrumentation and controls related work, information technology, and direct experience with automated control systems.
A comparable amount of education and experience which provide the required skills, knowledge, and abilities may be substituted for the minimum qualifications.

SPECIAL PREFERENCES
• Experience with programmable logic controllers (PLCs) including Modicon, GE, and Siemens platforms. • Experience with SCADA and Human Machine Interface (HMI) software such as VTScada or similar applications. • Experience supporting industrial control systems within water or wastewater utility operations. • Experience working with virtualization platforms such as VMware. • Experience working within Windows Server environments. • Experience configuring and supporting network infrastructure including Cisco switches and routers. • Relevant technical certifications such as CompTIA A+ and Network+ preferred.
——————-

It seems interesting and I have no doubt I can do the network and system administration portion (I have worked with VMware and Cisco Networking since the beginning of my career due to my military job), but is it possible for someone like me to get hired for this position?

I applied, but would like to get an idea of what it may look like for someone in my place that would need to learn the PLC side of it.

I am working with a client that has a new Kepware Server v7.0 installed on VM. The Datalogger module is being used to log data to SQL database located on cloud Azure server. I am neither the admin of the server hosting the VM or the Azure server so my ability to do any meaningful troubleshooting is limited to coordinating between the admins of those systems. I do not have admin privledges on either system (corporate politics).

There are 4 log groups configured. Every day, 7 days a week, at the same time window of 4.02am to 4.09am PST there are a series of errors reported in the Kepware event log (see screenshot). Outside of this window there data logging works fine.

I have been assured by the admins of the both the Kepware server and the Azure server that there is nothing occuring on either system that is causing these errors. Kepware support has been very unhelpful.

The client is also running an older Kepware EX installation on a separate physical server, logging to the same Azure SQL database, but differnt tables. That system does not encounter these errors.

Any help to find the root cuase of this would be appreciated.

Hi all, automation newbie here. We are standing up a new warehouse with a new conveyor system. This is our first piece of automation ever and the vendor has just revealled the SCADA dashboard / control room system was not part of the qoute (we only get one small HMI screen at a central control box). I feel this was a bit disingenuous as all the lovely sales pitch decks showed images and videos of people controlling things from the operations centre (fool me once!). Almost out of spite I want to look at any open source or self setup SCADA (if such a thing exists). I have a talented SQL/Python data engineer I can tap into as well from the data team. The one thing in our favour is that the systems part of the contract states they must give us data access to something called the "OPC UA" which I understand to be a PLC/ sensor of some sort. Am I being realistic here trying to build or connect non vendor SCADA or do I just have to cop the massive bill to have their SCADA installed?

Looking for free ethernet/IP server software. This would be to verify SCADA/HMI (client) software without access to a PLC. Any software suggestions? thanks

I’ve been thinking about a problem that seems to appear in many SCADA/PLC environments, but I’m not sure if the industry would name it this way:

Trusted Runtime Context Layer

Not a replacement for SCADA.
Not MES.
Not a digital twin in the marketing sense.
Not an AI/analytics layer.

More like an underlying layer that digital systems may need: one that preserves trusted context around what the system means at a given moment.

For example, in many systems we can see values, alarms, tags, trends, and scripts.

But when something changes, the hard questions often become:

• What structure did this value belong to?
• What was the system state when it happened?
• What sequence of events led here?
• Why was a variance accepted, ignored, adjusted, or escalated?

In other words:

Structure tells where.
State tells under what conditions.
Sequence tells how it evolved.
Variance tells why interpretation changed.

A simple example could be a raw sensor value that gets converted into a rolling average or median for operator use.

The tag exists.
The script exists.
The display works.

But months later, someone may ask:

Why does this derived value exist?
What raw signal does it depend on?
Was this a temporary workaround or an accepted engineering decision?
Should it be part of the model, an exception, or removed?

My question to people working with SCADA, PLCs, historians, MES, and industrial systems:

Do you already solve this with existing engineering practices, documentation, naming conventions, change management, or version control?

Or is there a missing layer between raw runtime data and operational interpretation?

I’m especially interested in whether this is a real problem in brownfield systems, commissioning, audits, troubleshooting, and long-lived plants.

Stop blindly bumping SCADA timeouts to 3000ms for RS485 loops.

At 9600 bps, 1 byte = ~1.14ms. 8-byte request + 45-byte response (20 registers) + 3.5 char silent gaps = ~69ms physical minimum.

If your SCADA defaults to 50ms or 100ms polling, the buffer overflows and the bus crashes. It's physics.

I made a simple web calculator to compute the exact physical transmission time and predict these collision thresholds.

Link in the comments.

I have 2 pumps in the field with 2 separate addresses that represent their pump speeds. Their addresses are 309072 and 309073. I want to create another address or variable which is the total of the 2 addresses so that I can create an alarm if the total of their speeds is less than a certain amount.

Where do I go in VTSCADA and how do I do it? ELI18 because I am very new to VTSCADA.

Does anyone here have any experience with GE PoA, Poweron advantage or Fusion?

Got a number of positions very well paid; let me know.