One of my favorite jobs when I was a young man was working in a cheese plant. Yeah I made cheese I made
23000 pounds of cheddar cheese every night in Allentown Pennsylvania. Well, it wasn't just me.
I was part of a big crew of about 100 guys and all we did every night was make cheese.
No I'm not kidding.
It was really a cool job though I don't know if you know anything about making cheese but basically
you take milk and you put stuff in it and it curdles and now you have curds and whey and you age that
a little bit.
Then you drain out the way and you take the curds and you squish it together and you end up having delicious
cheddar cheese. And I made some good cheese too by the way.
Anyway in this process you can only imagine big vats where we're stirring the milk and the rennet together,
and these things have to be stirred.
And there are things watching temperature and pressure and light and timers and all this stuff just
pouring through huge pipes into these big tables that would stir it some more and then drain out.
It was an amazing process to watch.
Now in order for this to work well we need a lot of what are called industrial controls. Now industrial
control has been around for since we've had industry pretty much but it's where we use automation to
control the process of any type of system.
So in the cheddar cheese plant we would have controllers that would do simple things like watch the
temperature and the temperature got too low it would turn on a burner you know stuff like that.
Well computing has changed the face of industrial control systems.
When we talk about ICS today what we're really talking about are computers really nothing more than
glorified PCs that are doing the job that used to be done 50 years ago with analog systems and timers
and all kinds of crazy stuff.
Now the network plus is going to be covering this
but just on a very light way. So what I want to do first of all here is get some of the terms of ICS
down for you so you can appreciate it and know what to do when you see the network
plus. Now if we're going to take a look at a typical ICS system now keep in mind I'm showing you the
most simple one there is here OK.
Now first of all you're going to have some kind of machine.
And yep that's the word you're going to see on network plus: machine.
Now I don't care what this blue box is it could be making cheese or making motherboards it doesn't really
matter to me.
But it is a single device that needs to have some kind of control and monitoring.
So the cornerstone of all this is something called the controller.
Now CompTIA is a little strange on this because what they call their controller and make sure you know
this for their test is they call this an ICS server.
So this is basically a PC but it's designed specifically to handle processing.
So in order to do this it's going to have particular connections for things like in this example we
have sensors. Now sensors are going to be stuff like watching for temperature or watching for the level
of fluid or watching for something happening.
And so sensors are watching for things to take place.
The ICS server is also going to have actuators now an actuator is going to be things like a pump or
it's going to be a light or it's going to be some kind of motor but they basically actuate based on
sensor readings.
Now this system is fairly autonomous but you need to be able to monitor or what if we're making chocolate
instead of vanilla or things like that.
So the last piece of a simple ICS system is going to be the interface.
Now the interface is where the human beings talk to the ICS server so that they can monitor the process
if they want to make changes any types of adjustment. Those are the basic pieces.
Now this has been a great system and ICS is still all over the place but because computers have become
so inexpensive over the years we start to see something called distributed computer systems or DCS.
Now a DC as simply an extension of ICS.
So in this case we're going to have one two three four different processes.
Now these machines look the same but they could be four stages in a process or whatever it might be.
So you can see each stage in this process would have its own ICS server but a lot of times we could
just because of the power computers we could have one a server that is handling a distributed number
of systems like this.
So not only do we have that but in a true DCS you're going to have a hierarchy of ICS systems.
So this main single box that you're seeing right here he could make adjustments to other boxes based
on things that are happening upstream or downstream in the process.
And of course you're still going to have some type of interface that the humans themselves have to look
at in order to do what they do.
These are the base pieces for an industrial control system but there's a lot more than that.
First of all when we're talking about an ICS or a DCS we're usually talking about a process that
takes place at one physical location.
In my case it was at the cheese plant or at the place that builds microwave ovens whatever it might
be.
It is physically one area and it's something where human beings can get to quickly if something goes
wrong.
But there's another form of ICS called SCADA. Now SCADA is a bit different, it's still ICS, it's still
industrial control systems, but it's designed for long distance things like oil field pipelines or railroads
or things like that where you've got electric transmission and things where you've got a lot of distance.
In this case the ICS controllers themselves have to be a little bit more autonomous.
They have to be more ready to take care of something because it might take a while for people to get
there.
Otherwise it's basically the same system.
So understanding that.
Let's go back and now talk about some of the pieces both of ICS and of SCADA.
OK so before we start talking about SCADA, let's talk about a little bit more on ICS slash
DCS.
So here's my DCS system it could also be an ICS system.
But in particular I want to talk about these two parts right here.
First of all the actual ICS server itself is usually a device called a Programmable Logic Controller
or PLC.
Now PLCs are PCs and they've got CPU and RAM and storage and everything.
They're usually headless.
They don't have keyboards or monitors connected to them.
They even have their own specific operating systems.
You'll hear things like embedded Linux or embedded windows or VX works all these very specific operating
systems that are unique for PLCs.
But the bottom line is they're still really computers. Now on the interface itself,
usually what we're talking about here is something called a human machine interface or an HMI.
Now granted this is also a computer but we don't really want our plan operators to be playing solitaire
while they're working.
So these are very specific screens that have a very specific interface that is unique to the process
that's being monitored.
Here's a great example of that right here. OK.
Let's talk about SCADA. SCADA stands for Supervisory Control and Data Acquisition system.
Now SCADA really is ICS, but it's got one part that you don't typically see when you're looking
at a typical ICS system.
And that is the Remote Terminal Unit and this is an example of a remote terminal unit.
Actually it's more than just a remote terminal unit because it really is a PLC, but it's a extra powerful
PLC that's designed to be more autonomous.
It gathers more data.
It's designed to kind of run on its own a little bit so there's some parts in here. Like for example
these are sensory tools that are tracking whatever it happens to be doing then we're going to have some
type of interface a lot of times RTU's will have keyboards and mice simply because if somebody
has to get on a helicopter and get to this place they want to be able to access it quickly.
And then last is the actual RTU itself that's doing all the hard work. And that my friends is the absolute
rock bottom basics for SCADA/ICS.
Now the network plus isn't going to test you too hard.
We've pretty much covered everything you're going to be running into.
But I want to put a little side note in here.
ICS is an amazing career opportunity.
I know zillions of guys who are really good at being able to make all this stuff work.
It's a great career area.
People do it all the time.
And who knows maybe one day you too can make some cheese.