Choosing a machine
One machine runs plant-wide SCADA software with a few thousand tags and historical logging. What configuration and redundancy should we choose?
IPC247 engineering Answered on 2026-09-16
If the central SCADA machine fails, you lose visibility of the whole plant, so redundancy matters as much as the configuration.
Reference configuration for a few thousand tags at a 1-second cycle with history: a current Core i5 or i7, 16–32 GB RAM, an industrial SSD for the operating system and a separate drive for historical data. Take exact figures from the SCADA vendor's recommendations, since each package uses resources differently.
Redundancy at three levels:
1. Two drives in RAID 1, so the machine keeps running when one fails.
2. Dual power inputs, if the machine supports them.
3. Two machines in hot-standby (redundant server) mode, if the SCADA software offers it; this doubles the hardware but lets you replace a machine without losing monitoring.
Network: at least two LAN ports, separating the control network from the office network. Back up the system image to another location regularly.