Do you know any SCADA better than Ignition?. Share your views.
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No. I am familiar with a number of them I would consider inferior for most applications.
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Can WW Archestra, FactoryTalk View, WinCC etc provide web SCADA service for 100’s of web clients?.
For a price, yes. I believe this question has already been answered elsewhere.
Is Ignition perfect? Nope. And IA would say the same, otherwise there would be no new versions. However, none of them are, just like there is no ‘best’ PLC platform. Each has features I really like, and some I don’t.
That being said, my opinion is that Ignition provides the best ROI over the others.
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If you want something that works out of the box, Ignition is not best choice. There is a fair amount of configuration needed for it to perform well when compared to WinCC and FTView (can’t speak to WW Archestra).
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Ignition engineering is NOT easy even for an experienced SCADA programmer. Despite attending several hours of high quality tutorials on IA university, many programmers feel that Ignition is NOT as user friendly as WinCC or FTView. Engineering tools eco-system, which could have greatly simplified engineering is missing. Many SI's personally feel that they have to hire nerds and rocket scientists to engineer projects on Ignition. Many developers, especially beginners, are afraid to discuss and ask questions in Ignition forum because they feel that they will be mercilessly hounded by intellectuals.
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I find Ignition to be a joy to develop and support. The only complaints from customers and my peers is its speed. RS View 32 update times can be much faster than Ignition. But when customers ask for the impossible such as machine control, db tables with dynamic colors and API calls in a single screen, then I cannot imagine making that happen in other SCADA systems.
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How would you classify projects as small, medium, large and very large?.
What do you think would make Ignition as a first choice among SI's for small and medium scale projects as well?.
If IA releases a tiered tags licensing option in head on competition with Top 3 SCADA vendors, do you think Ignition will be more attractive for small and medium projects?.
Completely disagree. I came from a RSView32, FTView, Wonderware, Cimplicity SCADA background and picked up 7.7 (~2014) without much trouble, this was before Inductive University existed. IA had some basic videos Travis did when Ignition first came out that helped me get started. I'd argue my experience made picking up Ignition very easy, and I became gold certified w/o attending any type of training.
I don't consider myself a power SCADA user either. That project was probably the best SCADA system I had ever built up until that point (~100,000 tags) and the success was due to the engineering ease of Ignition.
Completely disagree, miss a step in simply installing FTView and you're already behind. Not to mention trying to use VBA for scripting, RSView32 was better at this than FTView SE is.[quote="R.Alamsha, post:11, topic:17215"]
If IA releases a tiered tags licensing option in head on competition with Top 3 SCADA vendors, do you think Ignition will be more attractive for small and medium projects?.
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This is exactly what we DON'T want and what makes Ignition so advantageous over the others. You can get better pricing on small/medium projects depending on the features you actually require. IA will customize a package for you to accommodate what you need. You can make an argument the Edge product needs some additional tags included, but I wouldn't want to see this on the main product.
Every SCADA system has it's flaws, Ignition as well. However Ignition's flaws have proved to be much easier to overcome than the flaws I've experienced with System Platform, InTouch, FTView SE...etc
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What's wrong in having a tiered tag licensing option?. Let the client decide. If he wants, he can always upgrade later or go for full version. Majority of projects are less than 20,000 tags. By looking at the price of full version, many SI's will back off because his client will NOT pay him.
What benefit the customer will get by paying for unlimited tags when he just needs less than 3000 tags?. Why should he buy a huge crane to lift a 10 kg weight?. Why Ignition should loose such clients?.
If you’re looking for a package that is going to hit the floor running when you install it obviously Ignition is not it. We had this issue in one of our sister plants, they looked into it and tried to use Ignition but they didn’t have anyone that can focus on it and develop tools for them so they ended up hating it. When I started I pushed for it and had to show them the value of Ignition by using the trial version and make them tools and reports to get them to see the value and a month later General Manager said I want it! now they can’t get enough of it 
If you want the challenge of making things from scratch then you can’t go wrong with Ignition especially with all the tools you are given. Can you design the same stuff with other SCADA software as well? Sure, but I’ve seen others do things and I’m sitting there suffering because I know how much faster I can get the same thing done with Ignition.
If this doubt is happening because your management is not sure about Ignition, you just have to show them a few things using the trial version and get them to really see it’s true value.
Even when it comes to the price, the yearly subscription is nothing compare to some of these other software out there.
If you truly can find something that is capable of doing the things Ignition does then by all means go for it. Is Ignition perfect? hell no! but you are given so many different ways of doing one thing that you can always find a walk around if needed and the more you use it the more it’s clear that the team really care for the user experience and want to give us the tools to get it done as long as we do exercise creativity and commonsense and logic 
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Because the licensing model IA has created for Ignition is the fundamental differentiator from it's competitors, and arguably the biggest reason for it's success. Tags are irrelevant, just pay for the features you want!
Exactly!!!
If a project needs less than 3000 tags, but the customer wants all the features, then they want a huge crane:
- Email/Text/Phone alarms
- Historical Data
- SQL Transactions
- Reporting
- Connectivity to multiple types of PLCs
- Connectivity to multiple databases
- Ability to use their mobile device
- Ability to launch any number of runtime clients
They should be paying for those features! Tag counts don't impact the features the customer wants! If they don't need those features, then don't buy them! Features are the value-add, not the tag count.
Remember, the competitors make you pay for those same features too! But they also make you pay for tiered tag counts, the development software, any runtime client software! All of which then inflates the software support costs!
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Me when I see someone asking how to implement something that's already covered by the API:
Joking aside, I think the forum is a very positive and beginner friendly place. No other SCADA product I've used has a community this welcoming and consistently helpful. I think the ability to engage honestly in these types of conversations is evidence enough of that. Better to have the freedom to disagree openly than to see
CLOSED as off-topic/not constructive
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This is the key differentiator. All other features you have mentioned are integral part of every decent SCADA in the market since long time. I would say, multiplatform (Linux), rock solid stability and web based remote engineering by default are the outstanding features of Ignition.
Ignition pricing is very attractive for large and mission critical high availability projects. Such projects are less than 20% of the market. For non mission critical projects, which is a big market share, Ignition is unaffordable. We have to keep in mind, today supply exceeds demand. Market is flooded with low cost products and low cost manpower. High price for small and medium scale projects (less than 20,000 tags) is the main reason, Ignition could NOT penetrate into Indian subcontinent, ME and China. Ignition is loosing a very big market. I am saying this from my hard core experience. I can't insist more. Let IA decide whatever suits best for their business.
I think, you need to check my favourite topic USD 99/- license to understand my business logic.
FactoryTalk View only supports 50 clients (thin or thick)
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True. Despite this, most of the SI’s in Indian subcontinent, ME and China are willing to pay for FTV, WW and WinCC but NOT ignition. Why?.
Where there is no vision, the people wander aimlessly.
It’s a lack of vision. People tend to focus on the immediate perceived benefit at the current project than looking at the larger picture of how it benefits the enterprise. I think I’ve already stated this elsewhere, too.
Come to think of it, I say a lot of profoundly good things…
Anyway, this is why I suggested that you need to show them that Ignition is more than just SCADA. How it can benefit them in the big picture of the future, rather than in the pinhole camera of the now.
That’s another golden nugget, right there.
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When i spend so much time in this forum, don't you think i would have done that?. In the past 4 years, i have put enormous time, efforts and energy in educating almost every decent SI (around 100+) in ME and Indian subcontinent. Most of them downloaded Ignition and evaluated, But for some strange reason, they all have become silent later.
I guess, it works like this: When the SI proposes Ignition to the client in place of big3 scada, he will get a phone call which goes like this: " we came to know that you have proposed xyz SCADA. Please revert back. Otherwise you will be blacklisted". Another call will go to the buyer: "FYI, we are planning to blacklist Mr.x. If you buy from him, if anything goes wrong, you will NOT get any support from us. This is in your best interest. Good luck".
I am not generalising. This is my personal experience. The only way to break this cruel grip is, spread Ignition. IA must come up with a big marketing strategy for this region. Hope, now you can figure out my USD 99/- idea 
I do agree that it would be nice to have a cheaper package available. There are tons of small municipalities and factories that could use Ignition but the higher price tag will drive them away. A smaller package that has a tag and client limitation would be a great addition IMHO. But maybe this is not the market that Ignition is after. If you propose a package that can do x for $10000 and then your competitor says I can do 90% of x for $2000, most people will go for the $2000 and live with the limitation, unless that 10% is extremely important to them.
Ultimately it is up to the salesperson/integrator to know what the customer is looking for and also have different tools in the shed. I dont think you can have a one size fits all approach to every scenario.
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