On a Geo SCADA Expert system, you configure the Geo SCADA Expert database so that entries in the database correspond to the plant and measuring instruments on your system. This section summarizes the database items that you need to configure to represent the IEC 60870-5 slave devices on your system.
In order to represent any such devices, the IEC 60870-5 Driver has to be installed and running on the Geo SCADA Expert servers on your system.
When you configure IEC 60870-5 slave items in the Geo SCADA Expert database, many of the settings for those items need to correspond to the settings of the relevant IEC 60870-5 devices on your system. Some settings are either fixed (incorporated into the design of the device), or are configured by an engineer. You need to have access to, or an understanding of, the settings of the IEC 60870-5 devices on your system before you can configure the IEC 60870-5 slave database items successfully.
Each IEC 60870-5 device, including Geo SCADA Expert, has an interoperability Profile document that describes what functionality is provided. For each Controlling Station (SCADA master station) that is to communicate with Geo SCADA Expert using the IEC 60870-5-101 or IEC 60870-5-104 protocol, refer to that device’s interoperability Profile document to compare the supported features of that device against the IEC features that Geo SCADA Expert supports (and that are listed as such in Geo SCADA Expert’s interoperability Profile document). You also need to be aware of the address settings and any options that are set on your devices. You can then refer to this Geo SCADA Expert Guide to the IEC 60870-5 Slave Driver for information on how to configure those features and options in Geo SCADA Expert.
You also need to be aware of which optional features are required for each IEC 60870-5 slave item. These features include:
- Alarm views
- Alarm redirections
- Historic data storage
- User methods.
You can also use core Geo SCADA Expert features with IEC 60870-5 slave database items
For each IEC 60870-5 slave device that Geo SCADA Expert is to represent, you need to configure:
- IEC 60870-5 Slave Direct Channel(s) to represent the communication connections between Geo SCADA Expert and the IEC 60870-5 Master (see Configuring an IEC 60870-5 Slave Channel).
- An IEC 60870-5 Slave Direct Outstation Set to define each group of slave outstations that share the same communications channel (see Configuring an IEC 60870-5 Slave Outstation Set).
- Filtered Value Map(s) for mapping ‘point’ properties onto Information Objects so that they can be accessed by the slave’s Master (see Specify the Filtered Value Maps that Store the Source Data, and see Configuring Value Maps in the Geo SCADA Expert Guide to Core Configuration).
- One or more IEC 60870-5 Slave Direct Outstation(s) with which the IEC 60870-5 Master may communicate, in order to obtain data from Geo SCADA Expert (see Configuring an IEC 60870-5 Slave Outstation).
- If required, one or more IEC 60870-5 Slave Logical Outstation(s) to enable the IEC 60870-5 Master, for example, to read the data from some Filtered Value Maps independently from other Filtered Value Maps (see Configuring an IEC 60870-5 Slave Outstation).
- Slave Logical outstation(s) might be used, for example:
- to divide the data that is sent to the SCADA master into blocks that represent specific physical devices
- or:
- to extend the number of points (Information Object) that can be sent to a SCADA master. (If, for example, a channel only supports a 1-byte IOA, a single Slave outstation will only be able to report 255 points.)
To minimize the time that it takes to configure the required IEC 60870-5 slave items, you may want to configure them in the order listed above, as Outstation configuration requires that you specify an Outstation Set and the Value Maps that hold the ‘point’ data, and Set configuration requires that you specify a channel.