Few months back, i was giving a presentation on Ignition to a client. I have my demo SCADA running on my old 2008 model, Intel dual core, abandoned ubuntu home server. I can access my home server from anywhere via ddns. As usual, i accessed my home server’s Ignition web page, logged in, reset the 2 hrs trial, launched my Ignition client and started giving the presentation. Then the client asked for some functionality. So i launched the designer and fulfilled his request. Suddenly, the client interrupted and asked:
“Hey…where’s your project?. On your laptop or cloud?”.
I said “on my home server”.
Then he asked “Do you mean, you can do remote engineering?”.
I said “Yes. By default, Ignition is designed for remote engineering and remote access by web. You and your clients can access it securely from anywhere in the world by VPN”.
This triggered a flurry of questions from his team and i answered everything patiently. When it came to scalability, i showed the “Thousands of Sites & Millions of Tags” project by Trimax on IA website. I finally told them, how they can generate revenue by providing customized 24x7 remote “web SCADA + call centre” service to 100’s of their clients and get back their ROI within a time frame. (I could see their jaws dropped).
Ignition onboard:
I could see a lot of experienced SI’s under the Ignition umbrella. All of them can come onboard and start offering remote engineering services for other SI contractors worldwide. This is extremely attractive for contractors who do not have enough resources to mobilize and train their manpower which may include various aspects of project engineering like estimation, BOQ, Ignition, Database, customization with Python and Java, PLC programming etc.
I suggest all SI’s who can offer remote engineering services can provide their contact details and share their ideas here. Thanks.