What is the difference between SCADA and DCS?
Supervisory Control And Data Acquisition (SCADA) generally refers to an industrial control system — a computer system monitoring and controlling a process. Normally, a SCADA system will get data from a RTU (remote terminal unit). A RTU runs independently, except for some control from the central supervisory system such as fire fighting or emergency shut-down (i.e. water & oil pipelines). A distributed control system (DCS) refers to a control system usually of a manufacturing system or process or any kind of dynamic system in which the controller elements are not centrally located but are distributed throughout the system with each component sub-system controlled by one or more controllers. The entire system of controllers is connected by networks for communication and monitoring. SCADA systems are used to gather and store data and DCS systems are used to control processes.
