Instantly recognizable, command centers and control rooms are Hollywood regulars. From the specialized police department in Steven Spielberg’s Minority Report to the war room in Dr Strangelove, they set the stage for almost any disaster scene, scientific experiment or political showdown.
More than fictional constructs, command centers are the beating hearts of buildings, systems, and infrastructures. But their representation on-screen can help people get a sense of the important part they play in presenting a real-time overview. “I describe it by getting people to think of the control centers in big American action movies,” says Vladimir Cingel, “the ones with massive screens full of data.”
As a software architect, Vladimir is one of the many people whose responsibility it is to build and maintain the engines of these complex centers and, as a result, is constantly tweaking and modifying the Siemens supervisory control and data acquisition (SCADA) technology that powers them. “If you imagine my team as a band, software architects are the bassists,” he says. “We’re the middle part. The coders are the drummers and management are the guitarists or singers.”
Being in the middle means executing the direction set by management and delivering on their expectations, all the while overseeing the technical processes used by developers. “With the managers, we discuss the future of how things should be developed,” he explains. “We design things, discuss them, document them, and test them before we hand them over to the developers who work their magic with the source code. They’re the geniuses who can turn ideas into reality.”
Big data meets the big bang
One of the major institutions that use SCADA is the world’s largest and most respected centers for scientific research — CERN. The underground particle accelerator in Switzerland is home to most of the world’s scientific breakthroughs. The world wide web (www) was created by scientists at CERN while trying to find new ways to share information with each other, and it was here that the proof of god particle was discovered in 2012.
Exploring the minute buildings blocks of the universe takes an unimaginable level of precision and, in order to get the simplest overview, scientists have to rely on machines to do the heavy lifting. For over 15 years, CERN has used a SCADA system called Simatic WinCC Open Architecture (WinCC OA), developed by ETM — a subsidiary of Siemens based in Austria. “You have to be able to control 100,00 devices,” says Vladimir, “and process every single piece of data. No one can monitor all of that on a screen. So the SCADA system collects it all for you, notifying you of any changes.”
That said, only human intelligence can truly analyze the reams of data collated for any anomalies or changes that might lead to that pivotal discovery. “The system collects everything, but the client has to tell us what they want to look for,” explains Vladimir. “They can set thousands of thresholds or limits — so the moment the data dips or exceeds them, they’ll be instantly notified.”
Merging old with new
As the pace of innovation accelerates, the WinCC OA helps CERN and other scientific research facilities keep pushing forward with discoveries. “The software itself is 30 years old — that’s older than me! So it’s well established,” Vladimir explains. “But now we want to merge the different systems together so everyone can reap the benefits.”
So the team has created a new core, that will open up the software to a whole host of new features and integrations. But, like any operation, the process of integrating a new system without shutting everything down is a sensitive procedure. “You have to be able to understand the bigger picture, because I’m essentially meshing two things together,” he says.
Meanwhile, an advantage of using the software in-house is that the development team can test new features on less high-risk projects. Currently, Siemens Building Technologies has employed their own version of a SCADA product to help them control an entire building’s ecosystem, this product is also based on the IOWA platform. In a separate front-end department, experts are working to include state-of-the-art visual displays, helping their clients keep on top of whatever mass landscape of information they choose.
As a result of these improvements and innovations, the possibilities of what SCADA can control are growing every day. “I love science, I love thinking about complex things,” says Vladimir. “This job really challenges me to think and learn about the future in a totally new way.
Vladimir Cingel is a software architect based in Slovakia. Find out more about working at Siemens.
