The FactorySuite A² development edition license is now available in small (250 I/O), medium (2,500 I/O), large (4,500 I/O) development versions as well as the traditional unlimited version with which most users are familiar.  These additions coincide with the release of expanded galaxy sizes that offer unprecedented scalability for plant intelligence applications.  With platforms now available in sizes ranging from 250 I/O to 1,000,000 I/O per solution, Industrial Application Server is truly the most flexible, expandable plant intelligence platform in existence.  Additionally, Industrial Application Server 2.0 includes the industry’s most powerful and simple redundancy solution with Wonderware's one-click redundancy capability, along with enhanced productivity via InTouch® SmartSymbol integration with application objects.

 

The FactorySuite A² development suite is a highly productive application development and deployment environment for supervisory/SCADA, production management and plant intelligence applications.  It includes a single, integrated development environment for engineering and maintaining complete application solutions that use the Industrial Application Server, InTouch HMI software, IndustrialSQL Server plant historian and all available Wonderware communication servers.  Engineering and system maintenance savings come from the object-oriented capabilities of the Industrial Application Server, with its ability to make and distribute global configuration changes online quickly and without affecting manufacturing operations.  As the core distributed application platform for Wonderware FactorySuite A² manufacturing solutions, the Industrial Application Server provides the basis for improved lifecycle savings for virtually any supervisory/SCADA, plant intelligence or production management solution.

1.  Component-Based Plant and Application Model

 

The Industrial Application Server IDE allows for natural engineering because:

• It provides engineers with a user-defined plant model hierarchy that matches the application structure to the specific plant, S88 or other organization, or discrete manufacturing line.

• Its model allows users to approach applications with the plant, rather than IT resources, in mind. It is much easier to engineer applications with this new IDE. Plus, the model separates application engineering from computing distribution, yielding more flexibility in applications management.

• The hierarchical model structure supports reusable engineering by allowing any level of the structure to be easily re-used or modified.

 

Using Application Objects Engineers can:

• Build a library of pre-engineered automation devices to leverage best practices and company engineering standards.

• Turn applications engineering into an assembly process, rather than a programming exercise, enabling dramatic productivity gains that increase from project to project.

3.  Distributed Peer-to-Peer Communications

 

The Industrial Application Server provides users with complete flexibility in architecture choices both during the initial system design phase and throughout the lifetime of an installed system. The Industrial Application Server:

• Develops centralized or distributed peer-to-peer applications.

• Includes each workstation or application server in a global, networked namespace.

• Simplifies the maintenance process. Changes in data sources or system deployment models do not require changes to other components in the system.

4.  Scalability

 

The Industrial Application Server resolves the problems associated with scaling automation applications because there are no limitations on system size. Plus, performance issues are easily addressed through the introduction of new nodes. The Industrial Application Server:

• Provides unlimited scalability from one node to hundreds.

• Adds new workstations or servers, and any defined data points are automatically integrated into the initial application through the IAS plant model.

• Offers a common, distributed peer-to-peer namespace that allows for information sharing between nodes, without additional engineering or configuration.

5.  Historization

 

The FactorySuite® Industrial Application Server is tightly integrated with the IndustrialSQL Server™ real-time plant historian, which acquires, stores and retrieves production, process and material history.

 

The Industrial Application Server greatly simplifies configuration and maintenance of this plant historian by:

• Configuring historical logging within each application-object template. Each instance carries logging parameters that simplify setup and maintenance.

• Automatically updating and configuring the plant historian.

• Updating analysis and reporting clients online.

6.  FDA 21 CFR Part 11 Ready

 

The FactorySuite® Industrial Application Server approach to security is ideal for industrial applications that are impacted by regulatory and FDA 21 CFR Part 11 requirements. Engineering FDA-regulated applications is now very simple, with support for automated configuration audit trails, secure writes and verified reads.

The Industrial Application Server provides data-model security at the lowest possible level of granularity and extends the Microsoft® Windows® security model down to the physical equipment layer, providing security attributes that specifically match factory requirements. Users will enjoy the same centralized, easy log-in procedures that the Microsoft model offers, but the Industrial Application Server expands that security model by carrying it down to the equipment and associated automation levels, providing much more granular secured access for electronic signatures and audit trails.

Examples of security settings include:

• Alarm limits, tuning parameters, change privileges

• Security settings at user, device and physical locations

• Template configuration and modification tracking