Migration of Existing Systems
Turning old into new: How network control systems are successfully migrated
More complex and increasingly extensive legal requirements, systems that are no longer adequately maintained by the manufacturer or are even discontinued, missing but now required functions: The reasons why energy suppliers, transmission system operators, but also infrastructure companies have to modernise are manifold. At Sprecher Automation, we support you in successfully migrating your outdated network control system to our proven and secure SPRECON-V460 visualisation system.
At Sprecher Automation, we use our own wizard for the migration of your projects, which we have developed especially for these cases. This allows us to easily transfer projects from other companies' systems, which are also based on the Copadata software zenOn, to our SPRECON-V460 visualisation system. Of course, the primary goal here is to avoid a new bit test on the system.
By the way: A completely automated migration is not possible even with the wizard – and it is not practical either, as every project has its own individual challenges. At Sprecher Automation, we have the professional knowledge about
- the interaction of the telecontrol substation and the discontinued product,
- the special features of the proprietary 60870-5 AK driver compared to the zenOn Energy Edition driver (EE driver),
- the peculiarities of the used ISO/IEC 61850 driver compared to the zenOn EE driver,
- the special features of the old command and picture alarm element,
- the protection data disposal (via different formats such as Disto or REYDISP),
- the integration of Short Term Data Archive and DEAR (Decentralised Archiving),
- the functioning of redundant data points and data streams,
- the implementation of customer-specific solutions in the interaction of VBA, AK driver and telecontrol technology (e.g. by means of scripting),
- the implementation of the target system generator on the basis of XML / Dbase or CSV export to the various zenOn Energy Edition drivers,
- the support of the private AK data formats in the SPRECON-V460 IEC 60870 driver
- the implementation of "Reverse Direction", i.e. the sending of messages and measured values by the ISO/IEC 60870 driver of the SPRECON-V460 system. This allows single and double messages to be sent directly from the network control center. This function was often used as a tracking function in the past.
Due to the common zenOn core of the old and the new system, the familiar engineering environment is maintained. Users do not need any new training to edit. At the same time, much more modern and efficient software technologies are available in a new system. With the import wizard, we take variables from the existing engineering system and match them with the currently active variable list. The familiar Ax1703 environment is thus retained.
(Kopie 4)
In contrast to the earlier very simple representations, modern visualisation systems such as our SPRECON-V460 now only work with a symbol library based on object-oriented vector graphics with classes and instances. Through this essential simplification in image construction, you enjoy great advantages in the maintenance of your projects.
Another improvement is, of course, the display itself. From 256 colours with 1024x768 pixels and a 4:3 aspect ratio, we arrived at True Colour Full HD. A resolution of 4 k in 16:9 format is emerging as the future standard. These new or upcoming display technologies should be taken into account in a migration.
