Schneider Electric Launches ClearSCADA 2017

By Niraj M Wanikar, Chief Editor, CNCTimes.com, 2017-04-20 11:52:00

 Schneider Electric Launches ClearSCADA 2017

• Enables greater efficiency in remote asset management
• Further, strengthens the Schneider Electric HMI/SCADA software portfolio

Schneider Electric, the global specialist in energy management and automation, today announced the availability of ClearSCADA 2017 with innovative location services and integrated mapping functionalities. The driving force behind this product upgrade was to enhance insight and control for customers managing geographically dispersed operations; particularly those within the upstream oil & gas, water, and wastewater sectors.

Industrial Internet of Things (IoT) adoption coupled with broader economic, political and environmental developments are rapidly redefining the world, driving a need to better standardize technology adoption, enhance security protocols and improve predictive analytic capabilities. These forces are particularly impacting the management of remote assets, critical infrastructure and operations personnel spread over vast geographical areas.

ClearSCADA 2017 addresses these challenges with intuitive embedded location-based alarming and filtering, overlaid with real-time weather data and GPS mapping. This functionality provides unprecedented insight into asset performance with sophisticated alarming and graphical interfaces consolidating and transforming real-time process data into business critical information, heralding a new era of control and efficiency in telemetry and remote SCADA applications.

Key features and functionalities of ClearSCADA 2017 include:

Location Support – improves clarity of asset position and status via location-based alarming and filtering, with asset locations displayed on integrated maps

Integrated Mapping – facilitates selection of online map sources, ArcGIS map information, and/or Web Map Service (WMS) information, or other GIS, weather and other valuable real-time information

Active Directory User Access – centrally manage ClearSCADA users and permissions through Active Directory (AD) with new User Accounts created automatically on login when using AD Authentication

ClearSCADA offers tight integration with Schneider Electric Telemetry platforms yielding significant operational and maintenance advantages. Hardware integration capabilities within ClearSCADA 2017 include centralized configuration and deployment of SCADAPack-E, RealFlo, RealLift Solutions and diagnostics for the Trio-Q Data Radios.

ClearSCADA uses industry standard protocols to interface with third party telemetry hardware platforms, and also provides OFS (OPC Factory Server) communication with new and legacy Schneider Electric hardware and that of other vendors.

“We are excited about helping our customers map their way to a more efficient and secure future with ClearSCADA 2017 and continuing to enhance functionality and ease of use, with further mobility and user interface enhancements in upcoming releases.,” added Brad Shaw, Global Product Manager, ClearSCADA, Schneider Electric Software.

Initial Customer Feedback Reflects Ease of Use

Early positive feedback highlights market acceptance of improvements related to ClearSCADA 2017’s ease of use and intuitive user interfaces. This market intelligence is based on results from a TechValidateTM commissioned a survey of customers during the pre-launch beta phase of development, held in December 2016. The ability of ClearSCADA 2017 to reduce total cost of ownership and accelerate time-to-value in telemetry and remote SCADA applications has made a strong first impression with “90 percent of customers are likely to recommend ClearSCADA 2017.” Select feedback is summarized below. Read the full survey feedback here.

• 80% of surveyed customers who evaluated the mapping functionality within the new user interface found it to be easy to use and became familiar with it quickly.
• 72% of surveyed customers that evaluated the new centralized user management functionality found it to be either very straightforward to adopt, or really helpful in highlighting inconsistencies in their existing configuration.
• 92% of surveyed customers that used the mapping features found the integration of real-time weather information maps to be easy to use, and they can see themselves adopting this when they upgrade.

The release of ClearSCADA 2017 follows the 2015 R2 performance and scalability focused release of software formerly referred to as “StruxureWare SCADA Expert ClearSCADA.” ClearSCADA was rebranded to strengthen its alignment within the best-in-class Schneider Electric HMI/SCADA software portfolio.

Learn more about Clear SCADA 2017 here

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