Wonderware Vs Intellution Vs Citech

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Thread Starter

arundhati

I need to have 2 PCs , each hot-standby for the other, as operator stations. I have heard that if i choose intellution, i have to buy 2
copies of the software to be able to have runtime access on 2 PCs. I need the operating version on 2 PCs. The development version could be on a single PC.
Also I heard that with wonderware, there is some soft lock feature. What is it?
Also, does anyone have any exp. with Citech software? Please advise.
How do these HMIs compare in other respects, say access time, learning and programming ease, etc.?
 
E
This is true about intellution and also Wonderware. The softkey is basically a license software. Citect does not require two licenses.
Citect does their licenses with the amount of users. Their license system is a bit different from Wonderware and Intellution. Citect is
similiar to Wonderware as far as programming goes. There is also another HMI that has report functions, Dial out for alarms, etc.. built
into it. It is called VTScada made by Trihedral Engineering ( "www.trihedral.com":http://www.trihedral.com ). If you have further questions, I would be happy to talk to
you.

Professional Control Products, Inc.

727-785-8313
[email protected]
 
D

Donald Pittendrigh

Hi All
>
> I need to have 2 PCs , each hot-standby for the
other, as operator
> stations. I have heard that if i choose
intellution, i have to buy 2
> copies of the software to be able to have
runtime access on 2 PCs. I need
> the operating version on 2 PCs. The development
version could be on a
> single PC.

Why does this surprise you, you are running 2
instances of the software and this is what you have to pay for !!!!

> Also I heard that with wonderware, there is some
soft lock feature. What > is it?

Wonderware has a software key which is transferred
to the harddrive, without which the software runs in demo mode and will have restricted tags and as I recall, shuts down every hour or similar.

> Also, does anyone have any exp. with Citech
software? Please advise.
> How do these HMIs compare in other respects, say
access time, learning and
> programming ease, etc.?

Citect still uses a hardware dongle on the
parallel port, it runs unrestricted without
the dongle but shuts down every 10 minutes or so.

Think about using a thin client for the second
node, think about using a web client as well, there are quite a few variations available from Wonderware and Citect, I have no experience of Intellution, also compare the price of WinCC depending on the size of your application you may be pleasantly surprised.

Regards
Donald Pittendrigh
 
R
I have worked with Intellution (Fix 5.0 - iFix 2.x) and have found it to be a really good package in terms of ease of use, features and networking. I have not used their hot backup features. I have work some with Citect as well and they have a strong hot backup feature. Each, as you note, does have a heafty fee for each node. I have not worked with Wonderware and can not comment.

If your connection to the hardware (PLC, etc) can be done via an OPC server, take a look at using Visual BASIC for the HMI. I have done a hot backup installation between two PC's using VB by means of the Winsock control and it has worked out well. Also there will be no per node fees involved.

Thanks,

Rick Hudson
 
B

Bob Peterson

Intellution redundancy and networking is pretty straightforward. I have never tried Citect but I can't imagine it being a whole lot easier then
Intellution in this respect.

And quite frankly, none of my WW projects involved either, so I really don't know, but from what I have seen of WW, its probably pretty easy, but it will use terms only WW uses, the documentation will be difficult to follow, and it
will work in a counterintuitive way that actually makes it simpler to use and setup, but convoluted to figure out the first time. I am guessing this since this is the way everything else in WW is done.

I am absolutely convinced that WW does this on purpose to push their training classes. This is the only product I have ever used that I cannot find any usefull information in any kind of orderly fashion in its help files and manuals. I feel really guilty (and a bit stupid) but I find myself calling the WW rep tech support line for the simplest stuff, because finding it in
the help files, or documentation is so difficult.

I have never experienced this with other products. I have always been able to find the information I need by reading the manuals and help files, but for some reason with WW this just does not work (at least for me). I am not
quite sure why it is either. maybe just me.

Bob Peterson
 
Be wary of biased opinions... As a user I would suggest a look at ICONICS. The DEMO is free so I won't tell you what I think... just take a look & you'll see!

Regards,
RNJ
 
Great idea RNJ! But Iconics isn't he only supplier with *free* demo software. Get *free* demos from:

- Siemens WinCC
- Rockwell Software RSView32
- GE Cimplicity Plant Edition
- National Instruments Lookout & Labview

as well as the favorites:

- Wonderware InTouch
- Intellution iFIX
- Ci Technologies Citect

Check 'em out!
Mike
 
K
Wonderware and Intellution have thousands of sites that prove their ability. Citect probably far fewer sites but enough to know that they
will work. Many if not all of the other software suggestions will work for distributed/hot backup opertor stations too - but be aware that
different folks from various industries have greatly varying standards and ideas of hot backup, distributed alarming, programming verses
configuration, support, upgradeablitiy, system integrator support, training, etc.

I suggest that you specify what controller(s) you want to operate, what else you want to do with the process information besides operator
interface, training that you want, who else needs to be able to understand and modify the system, whether you will keep the hardware and
software current, and whether you want to be married to every change in the system for your life with the company.

Often the best software is the one that does business the best way to support your company.

K.Totherow
Sylution Consulting
 
For "Hot Standby" defined HMI, I would really suggest GEFanuc Cimplicity HMI, which also supports Dual Enet Lan, Dual DataBase, Dual Viewer etc, and it works without all the the "scripting" you need to do w/WW& Int., Plus when used with GEFanus PLCs with Dual Enet & Dual I/O Lans you can really achieve a "Quad-Log" type of 2001 or higher redundancy if desired. TUV rating on the I/O side if desired as well.
 
I have used many of the packages over the years and hate to see blatant untruths about products in these forums... There will always be biases as
everyone has their own preferred package and there are a lot of vendors pushing product here.. anyway

The last comment is true about Wonderware needing scripting to do hot backup, however, Intellution has to be about the easiest package to set up redundancy with. There is NO scripting involved anywhere for this. It does have network and SCADA redundancy and all you have to do is click a button or checkbox to get it running.

There is a lot involved in many of the different packages on the setup end for redundancy, backup.. some packages require copying of all the tags around the system. Some involve copying only pictures around the system. Some allow you
to keep both at the servers.

There are thin client options to many that allow terminal servers to 'shell' out client instances. This allows both the tags and pictures, recipes, etc to remain on the terminal server.

There are many ways to do these things and each package has their benefits and their pitfalls. Research well.. and if you are a true engineer, don't let cost be the deciding factor because in the long run you might spend more engineering
dollars trying to get an inferier package to do something that a few mouse clicks could have done.

My bias: Intellution (obviously - from my above comment) but that is from use of various packages and trying to do some of these things (WW, RS, Labview).

Check references on the products. I would be willing to be that Intellution has more redundant nodes out there than the other top 2 combined since networking (real client/server) has been around with that package since the DOS days.

my 2 cents.
 
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