Virtual Coverage

This is the ability to access the system in a large number of ways such that at any given time there is always a means for connecting to the SCADA-TEMS. The key to this is the Simple Access and Control Protocol (SACP). It is a protocol allows the SCADA-TEMS to be access by any SACP-enabled client. SACP is a TCP/IP based protocol and is an OSI presentation layer protocol. Client programs can be written to utilize SACP in manipulating the SCADA-TEMS server or synchronizing multiple SCADA-TEMS servers. The team has provided a number of SACP clients: a cross platform Java Swing GUI client, a web-based PHP client and a SMS-to-SACP gateway. With these Java client, the system integrators can run this GUI SACP client in any platform that supports a Java Virtual Machine. With the PHP client, they can access the SCADA-TEMS via the Hyper text Transport Protocol (HTTP) through the World Wide Web (WWW) or Corporate Local Area Network (LAN). The SMS-to-SACP gateway allows the users to interact with the SCADA-TEMS by sending SMS message through their mobile phones. The SCADA-TEMS server also is able to send SMS messages in response to certain system conditions. With these three benefits, system managers and integrators are now provided with a tool that could enable them to have distributed control of their system, facility or environment. They can easily add software or hardware modules to the system when the need arises. They can also access the system through a large number of different means. The SACP clients written for the project are only a few of the many possible other SACP clients that can be written.