Aveva System Platform with M340/M580 (EcoStruxure™ Modicon Communication Server vs EcoStruxure™ OPC UA Server Expert)

[dnordenberg1]

Hi!

We have quite a few modicon controllers and are migrating from a very old third party SCADA to ASP.

We hired a consulting firm that is great at ASP but has almost no experience/knowledge about modicon controllers.

Can someone please help me and explain what the practical difference is between these two OPC UA alternatives? They are both listed on OPC UA Server Expert download page, have the same version number so I guess they share significant parts of the code but the download size is way less for Modicon Communication Server (MCS). We downloaded MCS and tested it with ASP and seem to work ok. But why should one chose one or the other? MCS is free but the other is not. Both supports third party OPC UA clients so it is not free because it is "locked to" ASP only. So I can not stop thinking about what MCS might be missing or less good at compared to OPC UA Server Expert?

We also looked at Ecostruxure Control Expert Asset Link but was told it had strict version requirements on ASP so that scared us a bit. I think that route is also better if you start fresh with ASP and modicon controllers, not migrating SCADA and keeping older PLC code, right?

And how big really is the benefit of having MCS in Operations Control Management Console instead of in a separate software, I mean it could potentially block you from doing a ASP upgrade if MCS is not updated too or at least verified against the new release or is the Operations Control Management Console integration very version agnostic so it will not be a problem?

I see some small pros and cons here but I'm sure I'm missing some larger pieces of the picture here that I can't figure out 😞

There is also a third way I'm also a bit curious in but is even more puzzled about and that is the EcoStruxure™ Process Expert for ASP. Pros and cons using that? I see that it is a specialized Control Expert version and we already use Control Expert to manage our controllers today. My feeling is that this is not the best route for us either because of the same reason as Asset Link, we already have all the code done already and that Process Expert would probably have been more beneficial if we started fresh with ASP and modicon controllers, right? I also have slight bad feeling about jumping on specialized software versions unless it gives you some huge benefits that can not be ignored...

Kind regards,

David

[ciupol]

I am actually considering my old SCADA to ASP so I have been given multiple presentations (virtual and hands-on) from Schneider including information on your question.

Modicon Communication Server (MCS) is a dedicated solution when you use ASP with Modicon controllers. Ecostruxure OPC UA Server Expert is a OPC UA server for third-party SCADA systems to communicate with Modicon controllers over OPC UA utilizing data dictionary feature.

Since you will be using ASP you definitely want to use MCS. It is free for once (although the price is for sure build into ASP price). I believe it also allows to exchange some extra information between ASP and PLC.

MCS file size is much smaller because as you mentioned MCS is configured through Operations Control Management Console in ASP. Ecostruxure OPC UA have its own configuration interface so that is probably where the additional file size is coming from. Both have the same backbone and both utilize OPC UA for communication.

If possible you also want to utilize Asset Link which gives you a lot of great features for automatic recognition of PLC objects. I also have a lot of old (984 ladder) cade but Asset Link would be great for new development.

Ecostruxure Process Expert is completely different programming environment. It is Schneider's take on DCS (they call it Hybrid DCS). It utilizes Modicon PLCs but programming is completely different than Control Expert.