Available protocols
Interoperability is the basis of our business. Topkapi is regularly enriched with new communication protocols to make it easier for you to configure your applications.
Compatible with a wide range of remote management equipment or connected objects (IoT) on all types of communication media, Topkapi SCADA software meets all your telemetry needs.
Widely used for the management of drinking water or wastewater networks, energy management, public lighting, etc., remote management requires a real know-how in industrial supervision. The various type of equipments encountered and the associated communication protocols, the numerous communication media used and the ability to process data natively (often time-stamped at the source), as in real time, are some of the challenges that must be met.
To meet the practical and technical expectations of users, Topkapi software platform, published by AREAL, has been designed to natively manage time-stamped data at the source and permanent or non-permanent links (GSM data, 3G/4G, etc.) with connected equipment.
On the one hand, Topkapi interfaces natively with all remote management equipment on the market (PLCs and data loggers from brands such as HWM, Technolog, Ovarro, Sofrel, Perax, Wit, etc.) or connected objects, and on the other hand, it is compatible with all communication media.
Its configuration is as simple as for a real-time link and completely transparent to the user. To facilitate the deployment of applications, AREAL has also developed a configuration assistant called SOFTLINK which allows the auto-setting of an application by importing an external data source (files from the manufacturer's software used to configure PLCs or remote management stations or customised files).
As an optional module of the Topkapi SCADA solution, it integrates the management of time-stamped data at the source in a native way without any particular development in:
Timestamping is a mechanism for associating a date and a time with an event or a data. Its purpose is to record the value of a variable at a given time.
In the case of conventional use of so-called "real-time" protocols such as Modbus IP, Modbus or Profinet, the time and date stamping of events/data is carried out by the supervision according to criteria defined by configuration (dead band, periodic, event, etc.) in order to create historical data.
In the case of timestamping at the source, it is the equipment (remote management PLC, data logger, regulator, possibly an industrial PLC, connected object, etc.) that is responsible for dating the information according to its own criteria; it is then up to the SCADA software to "retrieve" and process this time-stamped information, ideally as if it had been acquired in real time.
The acquisition of time-stamped data at the source by the SCADA requires the use of communication protocols supporting this data profile. These protocols are known as:
But also other exchange mechanisms such as SMS, file transfers on FTP server, serial or IP Modbus time-stamped, Webservices, etc.
The use of time-stamped data at the source may become necessary when:
From a supervisory point of view, remote management can be summed up as the ability to remotely manage and control equipment. In this context, remote management uses a wide variety of communication media - PSTN, LP/LS, 2G (GSM data), GPRS, 3G, 4G, ADSL, Radio, etc. - therefore links that are not necessarily permanent, hence the need to manage time-stamped data at the source (see above).