Need for SCADA Migration Plan Increases with New Functionality

Overview

As their business processes evolve, internal stakeholders across a variety of different industries rely increasingly on SCADA (supervisory control and data acquisition) technology to support a growing number of higher-level applications.  The demands on system functionality increase dramatically, and the criticality of the need for SCADA Migration Plan increases in kind.  This accelerates system obsolescence and shortens the useful lifespan for legacy systems.  To remain competitive, companies must find a way to convert outdated system components to an architecture that allows them to support and enable the new business workflows and challenges.  This is the principal factor driving initiatives such as SCADA migration planning. 

Lots of “Moving Parts”

For effective SCADA system migration, the various interfaces, data exchanges, and supporting infrastructure must be considered.  This means that both information technology (IT) and operational technology (OT) groups must be involved.  This typically introduces a number of competing perspectives and issues.  Technology is continually being developed to reflect the changing demands of business processes and workflows.  Architectures and implementation techniques have changed radically from a decade ago.  Companies must employ a SCADA system that provides a just-in-time data flow and information to support these more agile workflows of corporate business systems.

Within the SCADA system itself, different components will have different effective lifespans.  Hardware components of both IT infrastructure and automation generally have longer lifecycles than do operating systems or specific software applications.  Many companies have succeeded in extending the life of hardware components with best practices and asset management programs, but it’s difficult to predict when a system is going to need to be replaced or an individual component is going to fail.  However, new analytic technology is changing this.

It can be challenging to develop a business case for upgrading a SCADA system based upon the ROI of a theoretical change in business processes.  However, other rationale for replacing or upgrading the system is more obvious and straightforward.  An example would be excessive maintenance costs or lack of spare parts and support from suppliers due to cessation of a product offering. 

Different operating companies have widely different requirements for migration planning and execution.  Management’s operating philosophy and relative openness to adopting new technologies or business processes impacts migration planning.  Successful migration planning programs must have early and continual executive management support. 

Due to the difficulty of the migration planning exercise, many owner-operators either do not have a plan prepared; do not have migration plans on active status; have a roadmap, but no definitive management approval; or have a plan, but no available funding. The fact that many companies do not have staff with significant migration experience to rely on compounds the problem.

Why SCADA Migration Planning Is Important

For companies that employ a SCADA system for core operational support, the flow of data and information to support the continually evolving workflows of corporate business systems often challenges legacy SCADA systems.  Software is continually being developed to reflect the additional demands of business processes and workflows.  Migration planning for SCADA systems must now include not only traditional and present requirements for levels of information exchange and control, but also the flexibility to address future demands on SCADA data and information flow for the enterprise or IT side of the business. 

Decisions relating to SCADA system replacement or upgrading go beyond the domain of operations or engineering groups.  Regulatory initiatives and the increasing complexity of the utility business require that the needs of all stakeholders, both internal and external to the operating company, must also be met.  Decisions regarding selections of new SCADA systems or components often include significant input from the IT staffs of operating companies.  The objective is to select a system, component, or application with attributes that will allow a cost-effective upgrade or an efficient means of integrating with legacy components, while meeting the operational needs of reliability and availability.

The Role of Management

Management’s operating philosophy has a strong bearing on how pro-active the company is toward developing and establishing an asset migration plan.  To be successful, migration planning must absolutely have an executive management “buy-in” at the onset of the program, as significant funds must be spent over a multi-year period.  Migration cannot be effective on an intermittent, start/stop basis or random intervals of approved expenditure.  The degree to which an owner will commit or the amount of effort and expense expended to extend the life of a SCADA system (software and hardware assets) will affect the profitability and adaptability of an enterprise over time. 

The level of in-house expertise and availability of personnel to develop migration planning also varies from company to company.  While larger firms might have sufficient in-house capabilities, the issue is the internal competition for those skill sets and the awareness of management for the need for migration planning. Due to the infrequency of migration projects, however, most organizations don’t have experienced migration staff or the experience is outdated.  This makes comprehensive risk assessment analysis particularly challenging.  Smaller companies will likely need outside assistance to draw up their first migration plan.

End of Life for SCADA Systems

When evaluating the lifecycle of a complete SCADA system, bear in mind that the components that comprise a SCADA system have distinctly different lifecycle durations.  While some firms continue to rely on remote terminal units (RTUs) that are over a quarter century old, a SCADA host or business IT system would not be viable for that extended length of time.  For SCADA, the end of lifecycle occurs for different reasons, including:

• Cybersecurity requirements and concerns
• Supplier no longer supports product
• Maintenance costs escalate to an unacceptable level
• Current networks too expensive or lack performance
• No spare parts available
• Underlying technology becomes obsolete
• Original functionality no longer sufficient
• Hardware wears out

• Incompatibility between legacy equipment and newly installed systems

It is difficult to predict when a system is going to need to be replaced or an individual component is going to fail.  For hardware, service life expectancy is primarily a function of electronic component obsolescence, service environment, and initial quality of product.   

Recommendations

ARC has the following recommendations for owner-operators undertaking a migration planning exercise:

• Select SCADA hardware carefully.  Quality is important and the total cost of ownership (TCO) is more important than initial or installed costs. 
• Select a quality vendor with a significant track record and experienced staff to ensure a successful project.
• New SCADA systems should be network-independent, enabling future network technologies to be incorporated.
• Keep up-to-date with supplier-recommended changes and updates.  Should the supplier eventually withdraw product support, the magnitude of the impact on your system will be minimized and the timing will be less critical.  Consider systems that support continual refreshing, instead of those which must be removed and replaced at a significant cost.
• Obtain management approval early on to sustain a viable SCADA migration plan.  Plans usually occur over a multi-year time-span and continual funding and management support are critical for success. Ensure the plans incorporate adequate and verifiable business justification.
• Factor in not only the operational and tactical issues when drawing up a SCADA migration plan, but also the longer range strategic business or enterprise changes that will occur in the future that could have a bearing on the composition and functionality of the SCADA system. 
• Keep SCADA migration planning dynamic; enable revisions and refinements to be added to or modify earlier assumptions and basis on which the plan was originally projected.  Update forecasts used in generating milestone or objectives.

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Keywords: SCADA, Migration Planning, Pipelines, Oil & Gas, Transmission & Distribution, ARC Advisory Group.