iHost for Electricity Utilities

Beyond SCADA

The iHost application is currently used by 50% of Distribution Network Operators in the UK. The applications are varied and include monitoring of :
  • Fault Passage Indicators
  • Fluid Filled Cable Pressures
  • Battery Chargers
  • Pole Top Reclosers
  • Distance to Fault Recorders
  • Transformer Tapp Counters
Control Room photo
network control room

Communication Hardware Channels

Ihost software can support the following incoming communication channel hardware.
  • TCP-IP (for Ethernet and GPRS devices)
  • TCP-IP for NMS uplinks
  • GSM Modems
  • PSTN Modems
  • Serial RS232 links
Modem rack photo
PSTN modem rack

Multiple Protocols

As more and more equipment manufacturers are embedding communications and RTU like functionality into their equipment the need for a single gateway to link all these products into the utility has developed. These products will often not be able to implement a standard SCADA protocol and therefore iHost has implemented manufacturer's proprietary protocols as part of adding iHost support for the product.
Each hardware channel, once configured, is routinely checked for availability, hardware errors, and last data transfer. Internal System Alarms are generated when the channel is unavailable or flagging errors.
ihost screen csm config
screen shot showing the Port/Protocol settings

NMS Interface

IHost provides a DNP3 link into NMS (Network Management System) and therefore any RTU being monitored by iHost can be linked into NMS. IHost provides screens for simply and quickly building virtual RTUs for linking into the NMS.
Any point from any real world remote RTU in the field can be added to a Virtual RTU and from there linked into the NMS System.
ihost screen dnp3
screen shot showing part of the virtual RTU setup on iHost

Data Destinations

In many applications data from field RTUs needs to be treated in different ways depending on the type of data. Urgent binary alarms might need to be routed to NMS, long term trending information might need to be kept in the iHost database for engineers to browse via the User Interface pages, and other RTU specific proprietary data could be stored in files for use by OEM software.
IHost also provides a simple setup for forwarding events as email and/or SMS to system users.