Jan 09, 2015 Rockwell ControlLogix Tag Integration with Wonderware Machine Edition in Under 4 Minutes 20150109. How we can create an integrated tag.
Well, first off Wonderware at this point is a pretty generic product. So the very first con of Wonderware, is having to ask what Wonderware product are you trying to compare?. Traditional InTouch?.
System Platform?. InTouch View for System Platform?. Intouch Machine Edition?That snowballs into the next con, figuring out what the hell you are going to need for licensing and what features the various licensing types will strip out. Take the advice from WW Sales with a grain of salt.Then, depending on which WW product you are looking at, what will the hardware requirements need to be? You aren't running System Platform on a desktop PC like you could InTouch.Then, depending on which WW product you are looking at, what are the deployment/central management options be? System Platform much different deployment then InTouch (#cough.depending, regular Intouch or InTouch View for System Platform).How many tags are you going to need?
To minimize licensing cost due to tags will you choose to in-direct IO tag bindings to get around some of the licensing restrictions programmically? Or will you just fork over more $$.How much time and $ will you waste trying to engineer around licensing road blocks with WW?Prepare to have multiple 4GB DVDs to install Wondeware, even if you just want basic Intouch. Becomes a pain to move those install files around on a local network, more so if you need to download from their site.I'm an Ignition fan boy, used on projects on the east cost, west coast, Southwest, South East, Midwest.we are a Premiere Integrator. We are a WW Integrator as well so some of my coworkers would probably find some PROs. Prior to using Ignition I was a long time user of Wonderware products due to company standards (prior to my current gig). I've always had to fight WW nuances to get it to do what I wanted.
I've never gotten excited because we choose to use WW on a project. I genuinely get excited to use Ignition on projects because I constantly find new methods, avenues, and new uses for Ignition. I don't have to worry about telling the customer: 'I COULD do what your asking, but due to licensing costs it's probably not going to be something we can deliver unless you pay more $$$'Need to connect to a database? Ignition hands down.Need simple deployment options? Ignition hands down.Need quick and accessible training? Ignition againNeed quick resolution on a bug you find? IA constantly takes end user feedback and quickly deploys minor updates should it be needed.Ignition does lack a true 'historian' product, so if you need to capture a lot of data really really really fast, you might have some problems.
But that is probably a minority case.EDIT: Ignition doesn't have any true ISA-88 batching product that would compete against WW InBatch. Sepasoft has a batch module for Ignition in the works, but not released. If you need to capture a lot of data really really fast you aren't going to accomplish this with Wonderware either. We use separate IBA software for high speed trending (for maintenance and tuning, ect). Ignition allows you to historize whatever you want (in just about whatever database you want by the way) at similar speeds to most other HMIs. More than fast enough for trending or whatever else operators would like to see.
You can also theoretically store as many tags as you want with the historian module for something like $3000. Compare that to wonderware or ftview historians tag based license gimmick. Exponentially increases the price as you add tags.
The built in historical logging starts to loose its shine when you want to do reports or use an outside tool like Dream Report. Most other tools are not built to handle those positioned tables or time-series data. In most applications i end up configuring historical logging fir tends and then transaction groups for basically everything else.Wonderware or iFix historians provide methods for querying data with a variety of interpolation models. Ignition is notably limited in this regard. You are left with raw database access and a lot of python scripting, which isn't necessarily the best way to handle that information. When you talk about a 'Historian' there are a couple of parts. 1 - Capture data, which Ignition does relatively well, has store and forward and the ability to filter so yes there is 'historical' data.2 - Recall that history.
Most historians have a native client that you can install, connect to the historian and the end user can view/build water trends they want. Canned client software ready to go, no development required. (Of course, licensing fees apply)Ignition, well you have to develop that piece. Which is fine in most cases, and IA gives you some pretty easy components to do this with ad-hoc tag selection and the easy chart. But, you have to develop that application for someone to view the data.
You have to develop the exporting/saving.etc the end user may wish to do. How 'clean' and 'polished' it looks will depend on developer ability.completely custom built.So yes Ignition can store data relatively well, yes it can retrieve and present that data relatively well but there is a difference in what a true historian product provides out-of-the box versus what you can achieve naively in Ignition and with some additional leg-work.Do most systems need a 'true' historian?
Probably not, but it's appropriate to be aware of it. Oh boy, I've been waiting for this thread to show up.Some background: I'm an automation engineer at a large steel mill, we have traditionally been full Wonderware.
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Early adopters of the 'Galaxy' concept, heavy use of both Archestra IDE era projects and old 'standalone' projects. Because of Wonderware we are currently trapped in a world of pain with Windows XP and decrepit hardware.In Wonderware's defence, many of our issues were self imposed (by the guy I replaced) but there are still topics I'd like to add to your list.Currently I cannot upgrade any of my Wonderware applications to use Windows 7 without replacing ALL of them at once due to everythings reliance on the 'Galaxy'.
(Hundred or so clients, ten or so servers) Instead of shelling out the hundreds of thousands of dollars quoted to do this, we are actively migrating to Ignition.Wonderware CONs:-No built in (free) OPC-UA. (as far as I know)-VB script.-Cost, cost again, cost one more time, cost every time you want a new client, cost if you need another developer. It goes on.-Archaic license structure-Training costs-Have to deal with salesmen or third party vendors to even find out what the pricing is. Have to deal with haggling like a used car sale in order to get a decent price depending on your company.-Have to rely heavily on invisible objects or stacked objects. (in my experience, but this is more of a design thing)-Security through obsfucation-Limited database connectivity (Have to use embedded ActiveX objects just to display a table of information from a SQL database as far as I know)-Steep Windows integration, never know when an update will hose everything upThe above cons also apply to FactoryTalk View by the way.Ignition PROs:-Seriously, the training for Ignition is fantastic. Within a week of finding Inductive University I was designing full applications for our process lines.
(On a free, downloadable, infinitely resetable trial I might add)-The amount of freedom the licensing gives you will start to change the way you think about HMI's. Suddenly it becomes a no-brainer to just toss another screen in somewhere for the cost of hardware and literally 30 seconds of configuration time.-No more worrying about keeping track of licenses. Client PC dies, no big deal. Developer dies, just as easy to fire it up somewhere else on the network. Also the automated backups of the Ignition projects is astoundingly easy - One file, autosaved to a location of your choice at a frequency of your choice.I still have a lot of Wonderware in my plant and every time I'm forced to make a change or do any backtracking of signals I just spend the entire time wishing it was Ignition instead. It's hard not to sound like a shill when it comes to this software.I've yet to come across something I can't make Ignition do but I'm sure the limitations exist.
I'm sure I will break it and have to call support eventually. Even considering the flaws I haven't found yet, it still makes WW and FTView look like an old flip phone in comparison (at a fraction of the price)Edit: just thought of a limitation.
In Wonderware you can pretty much rotate any object. In Ignition you can only rotate shapes, but nothing more complex or anything in a group. Pretty sure it's a limitation of Swing? Not a deal breaker though, in my opinion. We have been trying to move towards more simple graphics anyway.
Got to disagree on the scripting (and hence DB connectivity) comment with system platform, the.net integration and the ability to use most of the standard.net classes are one of it's best features where you can code pretty much anything in a galaxy object.Security through obfuscation? The AD integration works perfectly well in my experience combined with a well structured galaxy.Windows update wise you need to check the validated updates before installing anything.Pricing/licensing, I can't argue there one bit.
My company loves Ignition and I would always recommend that over anything.However, if I'm being truly unbiased.i think Wonderware still wins when you compare trending/reporting from historical data. You can do the same things in both platforms but I feel like Wonderware has things pre-setup out of the box where with Ignition has to be configured to get a meaningful trend. If I can spend less time training a customer to make a graph they want, it's a win. That being said, it sounds like you are coming from the plant level and not from a system integrator like I am. At the plant level, you probably will want the more customizable features that Ignition gives you and won't mind the learning curve. I'll go ahead and add my voice to the chorus that supports Ignition over wonderware.There are two notable drawbacks to Ignition.
The first was mentioned already by: Ignition's historical data access isn't as seamless as wonderware's. You can undoubtedly make it work, but just assume you are going to be making heavy use of transaction groups for any data you want in a report.The second is maintenance.
From the SI perspective, i won't recommend Ignition to customers that want a SCADA system that they install once and leave in a closet for the next 10 years. Historical data is stored in a database. That means regular backups and properly dealing with DB maintenance. It also runs on java.
That means paying attention to your java updates. If your clients get too far ahead of the gateway you can have weird problems. I had a print screen button stop working because the customer didn't update the gateway for a couple of years.
If you use ignition you should be prepared to be involved with your SCADA system on a regular basis. (This is arguably both a pro and a con)In literally every other regard I would recommend ignition. In every respect.
Just to touch on your second drawback, I think it applies to any SCADA package, in slightly different forms. Gone are the days for any SCADA system mentality to just 'set it and forget it'.
Security is front and center and isolated, non-patch systems will get purged. So maintenance of a SCADA system no matter the vendor is here to stay.So, when it comes to software updates, what platforms will make you lose sleep either due to worry about what is going to break, or late nights because you're trying to fix what was broken? Easy to make this point for any industrial software I think. I'm trying to start learning Ignition for testing around my department. Currently we have a few Panelview Pluses in the shop, but all my older HMIs are Panelview 1400 & even 1 or 2 1200s. We also use Wonderware, but only for the Historian feature.
This is strictly an Allen Bradley shop, I use mostly PLC5, and a few Control or GuardLogix platforms. Additionally, I'd like the capability to have a few overview displays for supervisors or maintenance shops to give an overview of the shop. What is the best way to get started with Ignition? Have any of you got any tips or tricks?edit: Some background, I've done most of my HMI work on Panelbuilder 1200 & 1400, and a little bit in FactoryTalk Studio. And you all are very correct about Factorytalk and Wonderware's silly licensing schemes. It's always a pain in the butt to work with.