More from the Zornio firehose

Remember that this was a simple, 90 minute talk... I have never been to a user group meeting with this kind of information transfer bandwidth. Many user groups I've attended have had great papers, and good speakers, but I have never, ever seen a meeting where the presenters just said, "Open wide, here it comes!" Peter Zornio on the Control Firewall: Why is Security Important? The Control Firewall does three important functions: --rejects non-control messages --does flow control of low importance messages and prioritizes control traffic ------------and above all... wait for it... ...the Control Firewall is designed for control and automation employees, not IT staff, to manage. Zornio then went on to introduce Experion PKS R300, the new release of the flagship DCS product. It is equipped with many new enhancements, some of them designed and paid for by the User Group User Input Subcommittee (UIS). --new trending system, continuous trending and event logging in the same trend --automated backup and restore reduces restore time by 80% over traditional "anybodyware" third party products --designed to Abnormal Situation Management Consortium principles for human factors engineering --continues the tight integration of Procedural Operations from R210 Why is this important? CONTROL will be publishing the keynote speech given by human factors guru Ian Nimmo at WBF last month in which he stated that a control system is only working properly when the operator doesn't have to touch it. "When the operator has to interfere in the operation of a control system, that is, by definition, an abnormal situation," Nimmo opined. Remember Jack Bolick's comments about the drivers to providing operations and maintenance services? Well, it applies to providing integrated operating instructions for abnormal situation management, too. Zornio noted, "Honeywell is prepared to come in and work with the end users to embed proper procedures in Experion."