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Rick’s Picks of the Web: This month on ControlGlobal.com

March 12, 2007
CONTROL’s Rick Pedraza offers his picks of what’s best on the web. Here’s what's happening this month, March 2007, on ControlGlobal.com, the online resource of CONTROL magazine.
By Rick Pedraza, Managing Editor, Digital Media


Got an Automation Minute?
Growing in popularity at ControlGlobal.com is Automation Minute, a new online video presentation provided weekly by Control Editor in Chief Walt Boyes. If you’re unfamiliar with podcasts (online recordings) and videocasts (online video presentations), now’s a good time to experience how they work on the web. In this latest installment, Boyes shares with you some of the things he’s heard about the future of SCADA.

In January, Control surveyed more than 100 end users who employ SCADA systems, asking them questions about what they want and need from suppliers in both the strategic and the immediate future. Boyes’ thesis is that SCADA not only is changing rapidly, but also that the technology is highly volatile, with many challenges and changes coming in the next few years.

As Boyes notes, SCADA and industrial control systems are the central nervous system for the vast array of sensors, alarms and switches that provide automated control and monitoring. These functions and systems are increasingly vulnerable to potential harm and require protection from malevolent cyber attacks or accidents. End users agree. To hear why, and to download the accompanying ebook, “What Your Customers Want,” go to ControlGlobal.com/scada.html.


Why Traditional Automation Marketing Has to Change

In this videocast editorial, Boyes notes that suppliers who aren’t thinking about new ways to work with their end users risk being steamrolled by those that do. To hear this Automation Minute, go to ControlGlobal.com/marketing.html.


Yon on Wireless
In this new podcast for the Process Automation Radio Network, Dr. Gene Yon, president of Adaptive Instruments at Accutech, provides his perspective on industrial wireless to Control Editor in Chief Walt Boyes. Is wireless really going to be the revolutionary, paradigm-breaking, chasm-crossing technology everybody says it’s gonna be? Well, according to Yon, it depends on how fully committed the standards development people are to understanding the technologies involved and the users’ needs. Hear why Yon views industrial wireless not as a displacement technology, but an enhancement, for the existing process control world by going to ControlGlobal.com/wireless.html.


All the Enterprise Is a Stage…
In a special-to-the-web article for OPC Connection, OPC specialist Eric Murphy waxes Shakespearean, presenting his thoughts on OPC UA and how it offers the promise of unifying individual business applications into true enterprise-wide solutions. In the article, Murphy notes that OPC UA provides a rich information model and standardized messaging, which will provide interoperability between the various event processing and automated analysis applications. To read how, go to ControlGlobal.com/OPC.


WHITE PAPERS

Does Your Automation System Have Integrity? 
What is your company’s strategy to ensure high availability and confidence in the integrity of these complex systems?

Storage Media in Industrial Applications  
When it comes to data storage for industrial applications, users no longer have to go around in circles.

10 Truths of SIS—Truth 10   
Here are the 10 truths that will make you better able to engineer a new safety instrumented system (SIS).


SPECIAL TO THE WEB

ISA-SP100 Wireless Survey   
If you are an end user, please help serve the future of process automation by taking this survey. We need as many results as possible.

Online Training Videos   
The six myths of process performance identify the right things to focus on for improved process performance.

Technical Manual on Measurement and Control   
Transactions in Measurement & Control explores the full gamut of force-related instrumentation technologies.

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