The International Electrotechnical Commission (IEC) maintains a series of standards that provide rules for standardizing communications between Controlling Station(s) (SCADA master(s)) and Controlled Stations (including outstations, slaves, and remote terminal units (RTUs)).
IEC 60870-5 is the IEC’s protocol standard for monitoring and controlling geographically widespread processes.
This driver is an advanced driver. It provides additional functionality to enable ClearSCADA to interface with specific supported devices using a particular protocol. To interact successfully with such devices, you need to:
- Install and run the driver
- Ensure that the driver is licensed
- Configure the required database items and settings on the driver
- Ensure that the database items (and any database items on which they depend) have valid, saved, configuration and are 'In Service'.
Intended Audience
This guide is primarily intended for engineers who are responsible for configuring IEC 60870-5 items and features in the ClearSCADA database.
The guide also contains information for:
- Operators and engineers who use the IEC 60870-5 driver to monitor and control plant
- Maintenance engineers.
Document Scope
This guide explains the configuration, features and database items that are specific to ClearSCADA’s IEC 60870-5 driver.
For information on how to configure ClearSCADA as an IEC 60870-5 Controlled Station (outstation or RTU), see the ClearSCADA Guide to the IEC 60870-5 Slave Driver.
Prerequisite Reading
This guide contains technical information that is intended for users that are sufficiently familiar with ClearSCADA configuration and operation. Before reading this driver guide, ensure that you are familiar with:
- ClearSCADA configuration practices, procedures, and the configuration of properties that are common to many database items. For more information, see the ClearSCADA Guide to Core Configuration, and the ClearSCADA Guide to Core Point Configuration.
- Driver structure, components, and configuration properties, pick actions, and status attributes that are common to many drivers. For more information, see the ClearSCADA Guide to Drivers.
- Advanced driver configuration order, outstation types, and configuration properties and logging options that are common to many advanced drivers. For more information, see the ClearSCADA Guide to Advanced Drivers.
Some sections of this guide are intended for operator-level users. These sections are intended for users that are familiar with the navigational and operational aspects of ClearSCADA. Before reading the operational sections in this guide, ensure that you are familiar with:
- The ClearSCADA user interfaces (ViewX and WebX), the various types of display, their navigation and operation. For more information, see the ClearSCADA Guide to ViewX and WebX Clients.
The ClearSCADA IEC 60870-5 driver supports two of the IEC 60870-5 companion standard protocols:
- IEC 60870-5-101, a protocol for directly-connected serial based communications
- IEC 60870-5-104, a protocol for TCP/IP communications.
The ClearSCADA IEC 60870-5 driver provides ClearSCADA with the additional functionality that is required to enable the ClearSCADA server to retrieve data from and write to devices, using either of the above protocols.
This guide summarizes the IEC 60870-5 Terminology of which you need to be aware, and provides detailed information on Configuring IEC 60870-5 Devices in ClearSCADA.
It also explains:
- IEC 60870-5 features that are of interest to operators (see Using IEC 60870-5 Specific Actions).
- IEC 60870-5 specific aspects that are of interest to system administrators and engineers when investigating the causes of unexpected system behavior (relating to the IEC 60870-5 driver):
ClearSCADA can use IEC 60870-5 to communicate with a variety of devices, including some that support additional features that are unavailable on other IEC devices. Where ClearSCADA uses an IEC 60870-5 Extension Driver to support these additional features, you can use the guide to configure the relevant extension driver in conjunction with this guide.
This guide explains how to configure ClearSCADA as an IEC 60870-5 Controlling Station (SCADA master). For information on how to configure ClearSCADA as an IEC 60870-5 Controlled Station (outstation or RTU), see the ClearSCADA Guide to the IEC 60870-5 Slave Driver.