SolutionsPT and ACP Release ThinManager 7.0 and Relevance Platform 1.0

We're excited to announce with our partner ACP (Automation Control Products),  the release of the latest version of ThinManager – the world’s most powerful thin client, mobile management system.

The all-new ThinManager 7, which is released next month, delivers a more powerful, sleeker and easy-to-manage user experience and also supports the new Relevance mobile platform that enables modern facilities to manage mobile devices. This combination of ThinManager and Relevance will define the era of mixed use computing environments, by enabling one software platform to manage every PC, thin client and mobile device on the plant floor.

Robert Dinsmore, High Availability Product Manager at SolutionsPT, said: “We are continuing to see an incredibly steep upward curve in terms of customers who want to adopt thin client technology. Many of our customers are significantly improving productivity and benefitting from total-cost-of-ownership gains by making the transition to ThinManager. The release of version 7 and Relevance offers another genuine step forward and the chance to embrace one of the hottest trends in IT right now - mobility.”

Tom Jordan, V.P. of Marketing at ACP, said: “We are very proud of the new ThinManager 7, with its completely updated user interface. Users will find ThinManager much easier to navigate and even more useful for managing all of their plant floor computer resources, plus the ability to work with the new Relevance mobile platform allows location-based management of any sized mobile equipped facility.”

ThinManager’s flexible platform can be configured through a variety of innovative options for any terminal server network, without the difficulty of managing multiple network configurations. ThinManager also supports virtual machine management, IP cameras and multiple monitors.

SolutionsPT is the sole distributor of ACP products in the UK and Ireland.

Survey Reveals Factory & Plant Environments are Embracing Virtualisation and Thin Client Computing

+SolutionsPT  recently undertook a major survey which revealed that a major shift is taking place in plant environments towards thin client technology and virtualisation.

The statistics were gathered during a recent SolutionsPT road show, ‘Thindustrial13’, held in conjunction with thin client management giant ACP and software supplier, Wonderware.

The roadshow, explored the growing trends of thin client technology and mobile computing and took place at locations across the UK. As part of the events the views of more than 100 systems integrators and end users were gathered. 

SolutionsPT’s research demonstrated that Thin Client technology is now widely used in plant environments, with 60% of end user respondents saying they now make use of Thin Clients.  However, although the bulk of Thin Client use remains limited solely to IT departments (35%), 5% of those companies questioned said they use it in their engineering departments, whilst an encouraging 20% now use Thin Client across both areas.

The drivers for the increased use in Thin Client technology in automation systems emerged as ease of management and increased flexibility, the consolidation of hardware and the demand for increased availability or uptime.

Asked about their plans to implement ‘mainstream IT’ into their plan infrastructures, more than 70% of people said they planned to introduce virtualisation and Thin Client Technology, whilst only 13% identified Cloud Computing as a focus and just 11% pinpointed BYOD as a priority.

Rob Dinsmore, Product Manager for the hardware division of SolutionsPT, commented: 

“The statistics back up exactly what we are seeing from the market which is an increased adoption of more mainstream IT technologies within industrial IT. We are seeing significant market growth due to the best-in-class management features, resilience and enhanced usability that ACPs Thin Client Management Software delivers to server-based applications. Industrial IT users have come to trust ThinManager for their crucial IT applications and we expect this trend to continue.”

Over 100 delegates gathered for Thindustrial 13

The road show was held at locations across England and Ireland and welcomed delegates from some of the country’s biggest names in industry.

For more information on ACP ThinManager and Thin ClientTechnology, click here.  

Survey Reveals Virtualisation Gaining Momentum in the Manufacturing Sector

Recently we conducted a survey revealing that virtualisation is gradually making the transition from the IT world to the shop floor.  

The statistics were gathered during our recent road show, ‘Availability Virtualisation in Automation’,  where the views of over 100 systems integrators and end users were analysed and compared. 

The research demonstrated that virtualisation is now becoming more prevalent, with 85% of end users respondents saying they now utilise virtualisation technology to some extent in their organisation. However, although the bulk of virtualisation deployments remain limited solely to IT departments (38%), 18% of those companies questioned said they use it in their engineering and automation IT, whilst an encouraging 29% now use virtualisation across both areas.

The demand for increased availability emerged as the key driver for end users considering virtualisation (35%), whilst both end users and systems integrators recognised external threats at the biggest risk to their security.  The end user respondents admitted that their current security measures were limited to use of passwords (46%) and the use of anti-virus software (42%).

Rob Dinsmore, our Product Manager for Availability commented: “There has been a tendency in recent years for automation IT to take its lead from traditional IT and many of the trends we’re seeing in manufacturing began on the office floor.

“As we can see from these figures, virtualisation is slowly beginning to transfer to the factory floor, but we need to embrace these technologies more to optimise our capabilities in automation and engineering.   When questioned, only 12% of systems integrators had achieved a 50% level of adoption within their customer base, so there is still progress to be made.

“Virtualisation has much to offer the industrial world and the benefits to companies can be significant. For example, with virtualisation, we can take traditional hardware such as servers and reduce the number of actual machines needed, by converting most of them to virtual machines.

“The advantages of virtualisation include less downtime, reduced maintenance and energy costs due to fewer hardware components and improved resilience against malfunctions.”

The road show was held at locations across England and Ireland and welcomed delegates from some of the country’s biggest names in industry.

Virtualisation for Industrial IT: Opportunity or a Threat?

It is estimated that 67% of all new global server deployments are now virtual machines rather than traditional physical boxes.  From that statistic alone it is clear many businesses are seizing the opportunity  - with high adoption rates of Virtualisation technology and the rise of VMWare.  IT departments in businesses across the globe have driven the adoption of virtualisation technology to gain access to the benefits that this kind of technology delivers. 

Benefits including: 

• Increased flexibility (central management, fast deployment of new systems, use of libraries and templates)
• Consolidation of physical servers and the associated benefits (maintenance reduction, better resource utilisation, less cooling/electricity usage)
• Move towards thin clients (maintenance and resource gains again here on the client side, simplified backup, failover and disaster recovery)

So let us know ask  if the benefits of Virtualisation are so great and the technology reliable and stable -  then why is the above statistic only 67%?

I believe one of the main reasons for a slow uptake is business risk. Many companies have been able to virtualise some of the less crucial, simpler applications but have shied away from the more complex and demanding systems. Industrial IT systems certainly fall into this category and it is only in the recent years that SCADA and DCS vendors are starting to design their products so virtualisation can be used with them. Compare that with the fact that the first virtualisation products were released back in 1999 by VMWare and it becomes clear that as with many other IT trends, the industrial automation sector takes the time and manages the adoption of new technologies in a sensibly cautious manner.

Here at SolutionsPT we recently took to the road to deliver a series of seminars that examined in detail the benefits and important considerations when looking to virtualise plant systems. 200 registrations across five different events in the UK and Ireland indicates the level of interest in deploying this technology. It also highlighted the support from software vendors and how the ongoing the maturity of Hypervisor technology is giving customers the confidence to explore this.

The seminar explored using the right technology and providing the level of resilience that an industrial system needs. In some cases the common IT approach to deploying a virtual system (clusters and shared storage) does not always offer the level of up-time needed for these critical systems. Plus the complexity of managing the system may not fit in an industrial environment where expertise is in short supply or the site is in a remote location. Add in the lifecycle demands of industrial systems which generally need to be in place much longer than traditional IT type deployments and clearly there are some different issues to contend with here.

Written by Rob Dinsmore,
Availability Product Manager,
SolutionsPT

It is clear that virtualisation is here to stay.  The benefits mainstream IT have enjoyed for years are now becoming available to the industrial IT world - with the developments in the technology in recent years meaning the opportunity is available.

Many customers are now interested in fault-tolerant systems delivering 99.999% uptime. These can provide a rock-solid foundation upon which to build a virtual system and deliver the simplicity of maintenance and the lifecycle needed. For more information please contact us today. 

Trends in Manufacturing Technology - Mobile Devices

IT products have been slowly making their way to the manufacturing floor for some years now, with mobile computing an increasingly strong trend in the industrial IT and automation marketplace. 

Manufacturing users had previously shied away from fully adopting mobile with perceived  risks including the cost of devices, suitability to the plant environment,  connectivity and security considerations. But now partly thanks to the 'iPad effect' we now have tablets armed  with various technology benefits such as Wi-Fi, cameras, GPS, scanning applications - the list goes on. 

All this extra functionality is great news for the manufacturing world and translates well to the specialist needs of the plant floor. Having a mobile presence can easily increase the productivity of a plant -  as information can be instantly uploaded to servers in real time for a quicker and more efficient workplace. Mobile devices can also create a more paperless environment - for instance in the use of form replacement or whilst displaying trends and reports.  

Written by Wayne Ashworth,
Product Manager, Industrial Communications,
SolutionsPT

One specific concern for customers using tablets will continue to surround security.  A lot of our customers are now simply using mobile devices within a thin client architecture - as so no data is stored on the actual devices themselves.

The key for any organisation right now is to get maximum value from their technology investment. So choosing products that provide the appropriate ruggedness, portability, flexibility and functionality to meet the specific needs is key. This is surely only the beginning of the mobile trend in across manufacturing. 

The Benefits of Virtualisation

The following blog series will explain and tackle the concept of 'Virtualisation'. A somewhat common term in the IT world -  it is now being increasingly used within the world of manufacturing and infrastructure. 

Last week we explored the term 'Virtualisation', it's meaning and the types of areas it is being used within the industrial arena. Today we will cover some of the key benefits: 

1. Less Downtime - The ability to quickly and easily move a virtual machine from one server to another is perhaps one of the greatest single benefits of virtualisation. Server virtualisation essentially creates a free testing zone for changes to server configurations since no additional hardware is required. In applications such as MES, for example, unplanned downtime results in lost production time. In regulated industries like pharmaceuticals, loss of data and/or control can comprise the integrity of a batch record and require in-process product to be destroyed. 

2. Reduce Your Maintenance Costs - With fewer hardware components to manage means fewer hard drive replacements etc. According to VMware and IDC, IT staff can see a 30-33% reduction in workload by converting to a virtual environment. 

3. Save Energy - Fewer hardware devices also means reduced energy usage - and supports corporate responsibility steps towards 'green IT'. 

4. Improve disaster recovery - Virtualisation can be used quite successfully to improve the resilience of an IT environment because they provide the means to recover quickly from component or system malfunctions using failover, and to back up essential applications and data. 

Next Week: How to start a Virtualisation project

What is Virtualisation?

The following blog series will explain and tackle the concept of 'Virtualisation'. A somewhat common term in the IT world -  it is now being increasingly used within the world of manufacturing and infrastructure. 

Wikipedia describes Virtualisation as 'a term that refers to the various techniques, methods or approaches of creating a virtual (rather than actual) version of something, such as a virtual hardware platform, operating system (OS), storage device, or network resources'. 

Virtualisation is essentially taking traditional hardware like servers and reducing the number of physical machines by converting most of them to virtual machines located within fewer of these physical devices. 

For example you could take 30 physical servers and reduce them to 5 physical servers that each have 6 virtual servers running inside them.

Types of Virtualisation 

• Application Virtualisation - Delivers applications to users from a central, controlled environment instead of managing each desktop.
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• Within the typical industrial facility, including manufacturing plants, utilities and processing companies, has many important software applications that can be virtualised. Software like Human Machine Interface (HMI) applications, process data historians and manufacturing execution systems (MES) along with other analytic and reporting applications can all be virtualised.
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• Desktop Virtualisation - Same as application virtualisation except a user receives an complete desktop environment.
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• Server Virtualisation - Creates multiple software-based servers on single physical server boxes. By creating these virtual machines industrial IT departments can seriously reduce the burden and time of maintaining the physical infrastructure. 
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• Storage Virtualisation - Uses multiple physical storage devices to create customised network storage.
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Next Week: The benefits of Virtualisation

Availability Virtualised in Automation Roadshow

Virtualisation is fast becoming the preferred platform for business critical applications, and the automation world is no exception. The numerous benefits of virtualisation are truly compelling, however important availability considerations are often overlooked.

Our 'Availability in Virtualised Automation' Roadshow will address the why's and how's when it comes to availability in virtualised environments. It will explore hardware and software solutions available today. More importantly, it will align the right levels of availability to the needs of business critical applications. With case studies and experts on hand there will be an opportunity for participants to take part in a structured yet open Q&A based session to discuss key issues surrounding virtualisation.

This event is free and only taking bookings for one more week - please follow this link for the booking form. 

Locations
We have chosen some of the most inspiring and unique sporting venues to accommodate our road show and will be offering free stadium tours at the end of each day where applicable.


Tuesday 16th April 2013
Manchester United Football Club, Manchester, UK

Wednesday 17th April 2013
Newcastle United Football Club, Tyne and Wear, UK

Thursday 18th April 2013
Silverstone Circuit, Northamptonshire, UK

Tuesday 23rd April 2013
*Rochestown Park Hotel, Cork, Ireland

Wednesday 24th April 2013
Croke Park, Dublin, Ireland

*no tour at this venue

Efficiency - is New Technology the Key?

As a small business we like to think that efficiency plays a huge role in our overall operation. Thinking about it,  all areas of our business are involved in activities which promote and instill greater efficiency. Yesterday,  as part of the Guardian Small Business Network, we submitted a Best Practice Exchange Entry on Efficiency, in a bid to share some of this information with other SMEs.

Looking at recent developments in technology, here are some of the current ideas which we have undertaken and are helping our customers in manufacturing, industrial and infrastructure environments use to improve their own efficiency:

1. Virtualisation – It is no secret that Virtualisation is already extremely popular in the corporate world.  By switching our servers to a virtual environment, we have started to dramatically reduced energy costs; speed up services and reduced downtime. This new, fully scalable system meets the needs of our growing business, allowing us to commission new servers in minutes, as opposed to the days/weeks associated with physical machines. All of these benefits are equally desirable within an automated plant environment. The technology is now becoming mature,  more robust and we see increased expertise across the  market on deployment of these systems. Customers seem now to have enough confidence to introduce virtualisation within their plant systems. 

2.Cloud Computing - A combination of increased flexibility and lowered cost of ownership are just some of the benefits of cloud computing for plant-level applications. Cloud computing is also helping adoption of new products and technologies in situations where customers may not have the appropriate infrastructure.


3. Fault Tolerance - In today’s increasingly competitive global manufacturing environment,

manufacturing enterprises are deploying an increasing number of mission critical applications in production operations to improve manufacturing efficiency and effectiveness. Specially designed fault-tolerant computers and subsystems, with closely coupled fully redundant components sourced from a single supplier, provide a highest availability option.

Wonderware InTouch named Product of the Year by Plant Engineering Magazine

Wonderware InTouch human machine interface (HMI) software has won the Silver Award in the Apps for Engineers category of US Plant Engineering magazine’s annual Product of the Year contest.

Winners of the contest were selected by the magazine’s readers, comprising engineers from leading global manufacturing organizations who buy, specify and use these products daily. The US magazine’s panel of industry experts nominated finalists from hundreds of entries, after which readers selected the winners in more than a dozen plant and manufacturing product categories.

As the world’s best-selling HMI software, Wonderware InTouch 2012 has been improved to meet growing industry needs in areas such as enhanced security; installation and license management; operator and engineering productivity and efficiency; and support for the latest remote desktop services and virtualisation technologies. 

InTouch enables plant engineers to make better business decisions in real time, furthering the pursuit of business optimisation. It dramatically reduces engineering costs, helps enforce standards and shortens deployments, as well as improves asset reliability and performance.

That’s why InTouch is used in over one-third of the world’s industrial facilities. Find out more. 

HardwarePT’s Availability Virtualised in Automation Road Show 2013 is almost here!

HardwarePT, the industrial IT division of SolutionsPT, has announced a road show in conjunction with fault-tolerant server and high-availability software specialists, Stratus Technologies. Recognising that manufacturing and utility companies are becoming ever more reliant on the availability of their IT systems and replacing physical infrastructure with virtual machines, the road show, entitled ‘Availability Virtualised in Automation’ is set to illustrate how manufacturers can ensure application availability on virtualised platforms in today’s world.

HardwarePT’s expert panel will be on hand to deliver advice on availability solutions and virtualisation technologies designed to deliver assured uptime for the plant IT environment. Robert Dinsmore, Product Manager at HardwarePT, said: ‘Things are changing so quickly at the moment.  We are seeing more interest than ever from our customer base who want to understand where virtualisation fits into their Industrial IT strategy.  As we know with Industrial Automation, the availability requirements can be different and these seminars are all about looking at how these can be met while leveraging the benefits of one of IT’s hottest trends.”

The roadshow is scheduled to run from the 16th April to the 24th April 2013 and is taking place at some of the most prestigious sporting venues in the UK and Ireland, including the famous world class Silverstone Circuit and Croke Park.

Road Show dates and venues:

Tuesday 16th April at Manchester United Football Club

Wednesday 17th April at Newcastle United Football Club

Thursday 18th April at Silverstone Circuit,

Tuesday 23rd April at Rochestown Park Hotel, Cork.

Wednesday 24th April at Croke Park, Dublin

For a detailed agenda and to register to attend visit: www.industrialit.co.uk

Rob Dinsmore, Availability Product Manager, SolutionsPT

IT Trends affecting Industrial Automation - Part 1

Consider the following two quotes:

“IT will never integrate into our Plant Floor; not whilst we are still here anyhow”

“We work closely with Plant IT these days, they sit in on most of our meetings, its critical”

Welcome to the intriguing world of Information Technology to Industrial Automation  relationships. If you are reading this article you probably hail from either the world of IT or the world of automation engineering. If that’s the case, then I am fairly certain that you will identify strongly with one of the two statements above, if you do not, I’m even more certain you will sit somewhere between the two.

Both points of view are based on valid reasoning, but over the next few years, I predict the second statement will eventually drown out the first.

But why?

To answer this we need to look into the past and into the future. Plant machinery has historically been built on a network that is separated from corporate infrastructure. The reason for this is founded on the sound premise that if a plant floor network is isolated from the outside world, the risk of production being affected by software viruses is minimalised. Just as the risk of foreign or government actors being able to gain access to trade secrets via cyber espionage are significantly reduced.

But as the world becomes a more competitive place and as third world countries begin to industrialise at an astounding rate,  the demand for Information from the shop floor to the board room is becoming a must have weapon in the arsenal of commercial warfare. The old proverb suggests 'knowledge is power' and to stay ahead of the game a modern business must be able to make decisions quickly, in real time, with accurate data.

Thus the two worlds are beginning to collide. IT managers are peering into the dust of the factory floor, like Captain Cook first did when he laid eyes on the Galapagos Islands. This is a strange world, with strange languages and strange computerized species, they look familiar, but on a second glance, it’s apparent that these are not quite the same beasts they maintain in their offices.

Conversely the inhabitants of the plant floor Galapagos’ spy a huge floating ship on the horizon, packed full of modern wizardry, The Ship’s captain seems very nice, he promises a new era, of greater flow of information, of streamlining traditional practices, of virtualisation, of cloud computing, of thin clients, of cyber security,  Yet the island inhabitants are cautious, as they should be, for just as on the Galapagos’ islands, despite the best will of all parties involved, an oversight on something as simple as a virus could wreak havoc on an unprepared, currently productive population.

I find myself peering into this chapter with fascination; I empathise with the views of both sides. The actions of both IT and engineering departments across the nation will determine the outcome of the inevitable change that currently sweeps our factories and production facilities.

Next Week: The discussion continues 

Ian Kilner, Internal Account Manager - Ireland & Scotland, SolutionsPT 

It’s all about Availability

Around two years ago we started to recognise that trends from the world of ‘mainstream IT’ were starting to have a significant impact on manufacturing IT; we surmised that this was because the industrial world was becoming ever more reliant on products that were designed primarily for mainstream IT applications. These trends included server virtualisation, thin client architectures and cyber security considerations. It was also maybe not surprising that the IT department was also starting to take a greater interest in the manufacturing IT infrastructure and with them came their terminology: the term ‘availability’ had arrived into industrial IT.

Since that time we have been amazed at the sheer rate of adoption by our customers in considering the availability of their industrial IT infrastructures and how this is impacting on overall system design.  Virtualisation is now mainstream, thin client computing is the preferred architecture and security has gone from something we talk about to something that we act upon.

But we do believe that industrial IT is different to mainstream IT and there are special design considerations that need to be taken into account when specifying or updating. It’s this belief, and the feedback from the market, that has led to the launch of our new Availability website www.industrialit.co.uk

The website addresses these many inter related factors including the legacy nature of many industrial applications and how they can be  vulnerable from a security perspective, as does the fact that many systems are validated making it impractical to keep them updated with updates and patches.

The debate is sure to continue!

Mike Lees, Business Manager, HardwarePT

The Upgrade Question: Part 1

It struck me this week, when I read some feedback from a survey we are currently undertaking with customers using legacy software, that despite significant developments in the IT world in the last few years, the automation manufacturing sector has been a lot slower in the uptake.  

IT departments may be making the decisions and leading the way with virtualisation and cloud based infrastructures, but our engineering community still remains highly conservative and risk adverse.  The wrong decision in a plant environment can often potentially cost millions of pounds and quite rightly manufacturers will wait for technology to be tried and tested successfully elsewhere,  before they take the plunge. 

The ARC Advisory Group carried out a survey a few years back which estimated that there were $65 billion worth of process automation systems in the world that were nearing the end of their useful life.  75% of those surveyed said that their plant systems were more than 20 years old. So clearly many facilities are making decision about whether 'to upgrade or not to upgrade'  but we can assume many manufacturers continue to soldier on with systems creaking at the seams. 

Here in the UK manufacturers are likely to keep existing systems and add newer functions and features on top in order to keep capital investment at a minimum.  There is an unwillingness to migrate until a crisis hits,  or until the business benefit is glaringly obvious.   This message came across strongly in our survey.  There seems to be a 'if it ain't broke, don’t fix it' attitude and many customers will only look to upgrade when the operating system becomes a legacy version. “We leave the software alone to do the job and never upgrade” was a common refrain.  

Also highlighted in the survey was the fact many customers currently have no provision in place to manage legacy systems or equipment and do not have a clear plan for how to deal with a potential upgrade requirement.  Add to this the complexity of a myriad of different components in different stages of their lifecycle and one might anticipate that the risk of doing nothing would outweigh the risk of change. 

Our SCADA systems are often at the heart of an operation with availability required 24/7.   Our customers repeatedly tell us, “we couldn't run the plant without Wonderware InTouch or Historian”. So imagine the potential damage to the business if an older piece of kit were to fail and it took days to get it back up and running because the legacy hardware or software was unavailable? The compatibility of all the different components can often not be guaranteed.  Surely it is better to be prepared, build some resilience into the system and consider some basic obsolescence or upgrade strategies?

Next Week -  The Upgrade Question: Part 2 - Ten Good Reasons to Consider Upgrading

Sue Roche, General Manager, Wonderware UK and Ireland 

Two Key IT Trends impacting Industrial Automation

There is a lot taking place across Industrial Automation at the moment. Two of the key information technology trends we see currently affecting our world are  thin client computing and virtualisation. We are constantly having conversations with customers who are asking, “How can we gain the benefits that are possible from these technologies within our industrial plant infrastructure?”. 

So why are customers asking these questions? Well the truth being many companies seem to have experienced the benefits available already within their existing IT infrastructure. Many offices up and down the country have workers who log into a server when they boot up their PC in the morning, with more businesses making use of virtualisation to deliver flexible computing resources.  Virtualisation allows quick scale up and down of IT infrastructure, according to customer needs and along with simultaneously delivering extra resilience and an enhanced disaster recovery plan.

All of these benefits are equally desirable within an automated plant environment. The technology is now becoming mature,  more robust and we see increased expertise across the  market on deployment of these systems. Customers seem now to have enough confidence to introduce virtualisation within their plant systems. An important point to remember - implications of failure are often much more severe in terms of damage to the business and often a direct impact on the bottom line may be risk. It is important for people running automation systems to realise that there are specific products available in the market  -  which help to stablise and leverage these technologies for the automation environment. 

These industrial products  may not necessarily have been encountered by a mainstream IT department, which is often the first port of call for the automation department looking for help who are typically using products further back in the IT development life cycle.

Our upcoming event series across the UK and Ireland “Availability Virtualised for Automation” is one of the ways we are sharing information about thin client computing and virtualisation products and concepts for the industrial automation IT market.  The event is free and bookings can be made here: http://www.industrialit.co.uk/events

Rob Dinsmore -  Product Manager, Availability Solutions