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HMI/SCADA Software Replacement – Upgrade Guidelines and Checklist
Is your HMI/SCADA system holding your operations back? Discover why simply upgrading might not be enough—and how a full replacement can unlock powerful new capabilities like advanced analytics, enhanced cybersecurity, and seamless integration. This guide walks you through everything you need to know to future-proof your industrial automation.
With the history of Human Machine Interfaces (HMI) and Supervisory Control and Data Acquisition (SCADA) systems approaching 40 years, many original vendor solutions are reaching their end of life. They must be replaced, not just upgraded. Traditionally, it has been easier to continue relying on the upgrade path from your original HMI/SCADA software provider, incrementally updating the system over time to remain current.
But today, new HMI/SCADA product offerings deliver optimized cybersecurity, enhanced analytics, improved alarm and notification features, and more flexible integration of your enterprise business systems - not to mention enhanced ease of use and rapid application development tools. Given these advancements, it's worth reevaluating whether upgrading is truly the best path forward or perhaps a total replacement is better.
A replacement of your original HMI/SCADA will likely lead to significant benefits over the solution that was originally selected. In fact, it's more than a technical refresh—it's a strategic opportunity to improve operations, strengthen security, and future-proof your infrastructure.
To guide that process, here's a checklist of key considerations to remember as you plan your HMI/SCADA system replacement or upgrade:
- Understand your HMI/SCADA and device connectivity options
- Consider new data sources for system enhancements
- Consider the Namespace schema - NEW Unified Namespace (UNS) concepts exist
- Identify existing data analytics
- Identify new data analytics for system enhancements
- Generate a plan for data archiving/historization
- Document existing alarm generation scenarios
- Review user/operator authentication and security models
- Consider existing software integrations (reporting, notifications, etc.)
- Consider new software integrations for system enhancements
- Consider your level of system reliability
- Develop a plan to export and import as much information as possible
- Review existing graphic interfaces, consolidate and define new interfaces
- Choose your replacement HMI/SCADA solution carefully - items to consider
- Plan for documentation of the new system
- Plan for operator training in the new system
- Plan for ongoing cybersecurity enhancements
- Plan for routine maintenance of the new system
Each step vitally ensures a successful, future-ready HMI/SCADA deployment. The following is a detailed description of each consideration to help guide your replacement or upgrade process.
Key Considerations for a Smarter HMI/SCADA Replacement
Understand your HMI/SCADA and connectivity options
In the early days of HMI/SCADA, the safest bet was to select the HMI/SCADA solution that your control system vendor offered. They offered the best connectivity to their hardware. That ensured that you received the best and most complete solution and integration support, both with the device connectivity and the HMI/SCADA software.
If your automation hardware solution included Allen-Bradley or Rockwell Automation PLCs, you would typically select FactoryTalk View Software with integrated communications as your HMI/SCADA platform. If your automation included Siemens PLCs, you would select SIMATIC WinCC HMI/SCADA Software. If the automation hardware were a General Electric PLC, then an iFIX HMI/SCADA or CIMPLICITY HMI/SCADA would be your first choice, etc.
Open industrial standards, specifically OPC UA and MQTT, are now enabling the selection of HMI/SCADA software solutions and communications solutions different from those offered by a control system automation vendor. Communications software (drivers) are now available from both control system automation hardware suppliers, and third-party software suppliers, enabling high quality communications.
Leading driver software suppliers include and their partner Takebishi and DeviceXPlorer OPC Server, PTC's Kepware with KEPServerEX OPC Server, and among others.
These third-party suites of communication drivers have become the new standard for device connectivity, enabling one OPC Server to communicate through many protocols to various devices, and serving that data through a single OPC Server interface to OPC client software. It is now easy to select reliable communications from one vendor and HMI/SCADA from another. The latest version of OPC, OPC UA, is fully internet-capable and has strong security and data encryption.
Newer OPC Server solutions also offer tools for rapid development. They enable the import of legacy namespaces from automation equipment and even map them to asset models and new namespaces to meet S95 and other requirements.
Consider New Data Sources for System Enhancements
With enhanced communications offered by newer HMI/SCADA software comes the ability to embrace additional data sources, delivering high reliability and performance, and upgrading your system functionality. Modern data sources include data from the Industrial Internet of Things (IIoT), as well as sources from business systems such as those for asset management (AMS), maintenance management (MMS), manufacturing execution systems (MES), inventory management systems, and more. For Industrial Internet of Things (IIOT) sources, protocols such as OPC UA, MQTT, and REST interfaces are the norm. They are widely supported, some better and some worse, by modern HMI/SCADA solutions.
For Information Technology interfaces, PC System API, SNMP, ODBC, OLE-DB and other relational database standards are more common. A modern HMI/SCADA solution will have connectors for most of these data sources. Ideally, support will come in the form of user-configurable interfaces instead of requiring the development of a connectivity program. Care should be given to the ability to read and write, as well as leverage existing visualization objects for displaying and updating relational database information without programming.
Consider the Namespace: Existing Schema vs NEW Unified Namespace (UNS)
The namespace in an HMI/SCADA solution is a critical item to define well in modern HMI/SCADA. While in the past, applications were often siloed - very specific to a part of a process, and early namespaces had character or format limitations, today's modern HMI/SCADA offers very powerful namespace capabilities to support S95, S88, Asset Framework, and other conventions. You'll want to select a solution that can support a multi-layer namespace with Plant.Area.Line.Machine.Variable.etc., and solutions that deliver valuable metadata and enable the intelligent use of variables.
The concept of a Unified Namespace is a recent industry focus for the digital transformation of automation systems. A Unified Namespace (UNS) is a centralized, hierarchical naming structure that organizes and standardizes data from various sources (e.g., devices, databases, applications) in a consistent, accessible format. It acts as a single source of truth, enabling seamless data integration, real-time communication, and interoperability across systems. A modern HMI/SCADA will offer a single version of the truth with respect to real-time and history data access, even in a large, networked configuration.
Consider researching standards for naming conventions. While today, HMI/SCADA software offers the ability to support any naming convention, going forward, there will be new standards that define a namespace for all to use. See efforts by - funded by the US Government to promote Smart Manufacturing, and the efforts of - a German manufacturing association developing equipment naming conventions in support of the OPC Foundation - OPC UA Profile Companion Specifications. These efforts are looking to standardize naming conventions so that applications can discover and automatically configure to deliver value atop real-time and historical data sources. The standardization of naming conventions will enable the plug-and-play integration of data sources and the applications that need the data, in the future. Imagine, for example, a runtime calculation app that can automatically discover all items in your system that turn on and off and can generate dashboards with runtime statistics automatically.
Identify Existing Data Analytics
All applications benefit from the monitoring, display, alarming, and historization of process variables. Many applications benefit from extensive analytics, such as flow totalizations, runtimes, parts counts, SPC, etc. HMI/SCADA solutions of the past often offered proprietary and product-specific solutions for analytics. This made it difficult for them to recreate when replacing or upgrading HMI/SCADA software from one vendor solution to another. With today's modern HMI/SCADA, analytics can be centralized and applied to sets of variables. Modifications can apply to all their instances. Adding a new set of input variables can automatically instantiate analytics for them. Tools for copy, paste, clone, multiply, export, and import, etc., will enable rapid and error-free development when migrating from an old HMI/SCADA to a new HMI/SCADA software product.
Identify New Data Analytics for System Enhancements
With analytics so easy to configure, a modern HMI/SCADA will enable you to create powerful and dynamic analytic scenarios. Applications can now offer forms of machine learning to recognize normal modes of operation and use those to identify anomalies. Analytics can include results from real-time and history-based data aggregations. Predictive maintenance becomes a valuable benefit of a modern HMI/SCADA.
Analytics vary greatly from market to market. What is common in a Building Automation System (BAS) may not be applicable in a Water or Wastewater application. What is common in manufacturing will be uncommon in the Oil and Gas industry. For this reason, a modern HMI/SCADA will enable the integration of third-party Application Accelerators, pre-built pieces of an application available from the vendor or the system integration company supporting your solution. A modern HMI/SCADA will focus on rapid development and end-user configuration as opposed to programmatic development, which is only possible with the HMI/SCADA domain expert. All HMI/SCADA solutions should be end-user configurable, even if you intend to have the support of a System Integration company. Do not rely on HMI/SCADA software solutions that leverage extensive scripting or application code development. Those solutions are more costly to create, troubleshoot, document, and maintain in the long run.
Generate a Plan for Data Archiving/Historization
HMI/SCADA solutions vary greatly with respect to their data historization. Some HMI/SCADA software applications are simple data loggers to proprietary files or relational databases. Other HMI/SCADA solutions offer more sophisticated data historian capabilities. An industrial data historian is a specialized software system designed to collect, compress, store, and manage time-series data from industrial processes. Historians often deliver various types of compression on time series data, greatly increasing the quantity of data stored in a minimum of archive file space. Historians can also deliver powerful data aggregation modes that benefit the layered analytics or reporting that is to be performed. For example, you might query a day of data but ask for the response in 24-hour averages. A modern HMI/SCADA will offer quick configuration of a historian by importing tag lists and archiving scenarios. They will offer automated backups and archive file generation. Also, the importing of vast amounts of data allows the migration from your past solutions to this new archive. Most importantly, your modern HMI/SCADA will be tightly linked with your historian, common licensing, and security profiles, and it will offer easy data access for real-time analytics purposes. The historian will also support industry standards such as OPC HDA (OPC History Data Access) and automated CSV format or other format exporting for integration with other third-party software solutions.
Document Existing Alarm Scenarios
Alarm generation is a major area of differentiation between HMI/SCADA software products. It seems that every vendor had their own solutions for creating and managing alarms and saw that functionality as their area of differentiation. Pay close attention to the capabilities of your existing system and determine what capabilities you will want in your modern HMI/SCADA. The good news is that your modern HMI/SCADA will likely offer a very flexible alarm configuration and management capability. Features like centralized alarm configuration, enabling, disabling, parking, silencing, etc., are common features in a modern HMI/SCADA. An area of differentiation in products tends to be within user interfaces, such as being able to query alarms by equipment types or plant areas. Offering powerful alarm notification scenarios or interaction with both desktop and mobile devices will be a basic requirement. Again, look for HMI/SCADA solutions that offer extensive import and export, clone, multiply, copy, and paste features for rapid development.
Review User Authentication and Security Models
Most HMI/SCADA solutions offer internal features for user management and security. Differentiation involves larger systems where HMI/SCADA solutions must authenticate against a Windows or other domain security solution (Active Directory or LDAP). These security solutions offer both individual and group authorizations. Password rules for strength, reuse, or duration management.
Certain markets have added security requirements. For example, the pharmaceutical industry has additional requirements described in 21CFRPart11. Power and utilities applications have requirements for NERC CIP. You may have requirements for smart cards, biometrics, etc. Be sure your new HMI/SCADA software supports your security needs.
Consider Existing Application Integrations
Early HMI/SCADA software products were more focused on the operational aspects of a process than the analytics or notification aspects. Admittedly, this was in the early days of the market, but that focus left the door open for third-party vendors to deliver layered solutions for reporting or notification. Examples of those solutions are SyTech - XLReporter, SmartSights - Win-911, and Ocean Data Systems - Dream Report, among others. The selection of a modern HMI/SCADA solution, which is much more capable and mature in its functionality, may also make these layered solutions redundant. A modern HMI/SCADA likely offers report generation and built-in notifications. Modern HMI/SCADA solutions often also offer workflow options to manage multi-step processes or data bridge solutions to create transactions of data for integration with third-party Information Technology (IT) solutions.
Consider New System Integrations for System Enhancements
While reporting, notification, and IT integration have become more commonplace as HMI/SCADA features, there are new frontiers of integration. Integration has become much more distributed, including cloud platforms and Software as a Service (SaaS) solutions. The modern HMI/SCADA will support a much broader array of interfaces and be able to package data transactions for transmittal to these solutions. While there is still a significant focus on reporting and notification, largely being handled within the modern HMI/SCADA, the new frontier for integration is with Digital Twin, Artificial Intelligence (AI), and Machine Learning technologies that third-party vendors are offering. Be sure your next HMI/SCADA will offer the connectivity you need, in simple and reliable "productized - not customized" ways. Avoid custom-coded solutions that will be costly and difficult to maintain.
Consider Your Level of Reliability
Failures will happen. Consider failures at every level - device communications failure, network failure, internet failure, computer failure, user interface failure, etc. Know what you can tolerate. Consider the levels of redundancy you may want to implement. Do you need redundancy for field device communications? OPC Server redundancy? Will you want specialized redundant computer hardware (Stratus Computer - now Penguin Solutions)? If you choose full system redundancy, know that modern HMI/SCADA solutions are still quite different in their handling of redundancy, and this is a key area for a competitive advantage.
Redundancy in an HMI/SCADA software solution should be applied across the board and operated as seamlessly as possible. Store and forward capabilities are key to not losing data. User interfaces should automatically switch from one HMI/SCADA server to another. There should be options as to when a primary HMI/SCADA server should come back online and how. It can be automatic, but there should be other checks and balances before a return to primary function. Be sure your HMI/SCADA solution matches your reliability expectations.
Develop a Plan to Export and Import as Much Information as Possible
Configuring a new HMI/SCADA system is a major effort, and it is easy for humans to make mistakes in repetitive tasks. The best HMI/SCADA software solutions will offer a wide range of tools to automate system configuration as much as possible, to avoid human error. Leverage exporting and importing, where possible, to move existing configurations from old systems to new ones. Many HMI/SCADA software solutions offer configuration storage in easily accessible archives (relational databases). This may facilitate the development of external tools for productivity. In some cases, where system integrators build their business around a particular HMI/SCADA, they can develop solutions that will automatically configure functionality for new assets that are brought online. Automatically create analytics, visualization, historization, reporting, alarming, etc., for newly discovered assets. Configure new assets without restarting your HMI/SCADA (runtime configuration). Enable the configuration by different users at the same time. New HMI/SCADA solutions offer these capabilities.
Review Existing Graphic Interfaces, Consolidate and Define New Interfaces
Graphic interfaces continue to improve. Graphic standards have changed significantly over time. Today's modern HMI/SCADA will offer access through "Any Glass," with operators able to use desktop computers with multiple monitors, mobile devices such as phones and tablets with any browser or operating system. Old technologies like Active-X, Silverlight, or Java-based products are giving way to more modern products with HTML-5-based user interfaces. New functionality for 3D rendering of displays is also possible and delivers a premium user interface in applications for Building Automation or Facilities Management. Many OEM companies leverage 3D graphics to offer a visual competitive advantage for their equipment over other offerings. Specialized objects for History Data Display, operator annotations, or relational database integration are new areas of differentiation and competition. Sankey diagram objects are key for visualizing energy, water, wastewater, or oil and gas flows. A modern HMI/SCADA will also automatically assemble visualizations based on asset selections or area selections so that graphic interfaces will not need to be generated for every conceivable situation.
Choose Your Replacement HMI/SCADA Solution Carefully
A modern HMI/SCADA software solution has matured greatly over the past few years. Underlying technologies have been modernized. Cybersecurity and secure by default are core to most modern HMI/SCADA software solutions. For more information on the features of a modern HMI/SCADA, please see this blog.
Plan for Documentation of the New System
As once was famously said, "The Job isn't complete till the paperwork is done." This applies to HMI/SCADA software solutions as well. Changes to HMI/SCADA need to be made efficiently and expeditiously. Often, that means reviewing the existing configurations to scope and schedule the needed enhancements. Reviewing the documentation is also an excellent learning tool for new users and those not directly connected to the HMI/SCADA.
One significant question is, "How do we document the HMI/SCADA?" This answer can be challenging. If an HMI/SCADA is configured with scripting or programming, documentation is an ad-hoc activity lacking consistency or standardized formatting. HMI/SCADA solutions that are configurable will be easier to document and offer better formatting. Their configurations are typically stored in tables or relational databases and are much easier to manipulate or format for documentation purposes. Many solutions offer documentation output as a built-in feature.
Plan for Operator Training in the New System
We live in an online world, and training should be delivered free of charge through an online university, at a minimum. In-person courses are also a valuable resource, especially for collaboration or extra support to address challenging applications. Still, your ability to select an HMI/SCADA product, download a trial, install it, and learn through self-paced online training is the industry norm and should be expected from every HMI/SCADA vendor.
Plan for Ongoing Cybersecurity Enhancements
Set and forget is no longer a viable solution for HMI/SCADA applications. Modern HMI/SCADA will offer broader connectivity for notifications through email and text messaging, among other media. Cloud connectivity for layered analytic solutions is becoming the norm. In the new digital transformed world, it will be important to create a process for software patches and updates that are available from all vendor products, from the HMI/SCADA to the operating system and other components of your complete solution.
Become familiar with the standards for Cybersecurity that have been developed in support of HMI/SCADA solutions. They are IEC 62443 (ISA/IEC 62443), NIST SP 800-82 (Guide to Industrial Control Systems Security), NERC CIP (North American Electric Reliability Corporation Critical Infrastructure Protection), and CISA ICS Cybersecurity Recommendations, to name a few. Before selecting your new HMI/SCADA software solution, ensure your HMI/SCADA vendor has a credible and ongoing effort to support these standards and guidelines.
Plan for Routine Maintenance of the New System
All software systems need maintenance, and HMI/SCADA is no exception. Maintenance items include reviewing users and security, aging passwords, assigning group authorizations, checking disk space, reviewing system performance, checking historian archives, performing regular backups, etc. Many HMI/SCADA software products will monitor their health and notify you of anomalies. Modern HMI/SCADA software will support IT Protocols such as SNMP V3, to monitor the health and operation of network attached storage (NAS), Uninterruptible Power Supplies (UPS Systems), bridges, routers, printers, etc.
In Conclusion,
Replacing an aging HMI/SCADA system, as outlined in the "HMI/SCADA Software Replacement - Upgrade Guide and Checklist," is a strategic move to harness modern advancements after nearly 40 years of legacy solutions that are reaching their end of life. New HMI/SCADA solutions will offer benefits like enhanced cybersecurity, advanced analytics, seamless integration with enterprise systems, and user-friendly interfaces. This guide provides a comprehensive checklist, emphasizing critical steps such as identifying existing and new data sources, adopting a Unified Namespace (UNS) for standardized data access, upgrading analytics for predictive maintenance, ensuring robust data historization, and enhancing alarm systems, security models, and system reliability through redundancy. It also highlights the importance of leveraging modern standards like OPC UA and MQTT for connectivity, planning for operator training, maintaining ongoing cybersecurity with standards like IEC 62443, and scheduling routine maintenance to ensure long-term performance. By carefully selecting a new HMI/SCADA solution and meticulously planning the migration, focusing on data export/import, updated graphic interfaces, and thorough documentation, organizations can achieve a digital transformation upgrade that aligns with current industrial demands and future-proofs their operations.
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Colaboradores
Roy Kok
Especialista sénior en alianzas y asociaciones
Mitsubishi Electric Automation, Inc.
