n7® SCADA Care
If you’re an owner or operator of a wind farm, the long-term reliability of your SCADA system and its resistance against risks and threats is largely up to you. Although a SCADA system is generally very robust, a lack of service, updates and general neglect makes it only a matter of time before major problems start occurring. If the data flow and communication comes to a halt because of hardware- or software errors, or when the power plant is exposed to a cyber attack due to a security leak, your power plant may find itself at grave risk, and your revenue stream in danger.
The solution
n7® SCADA Care
Our n7® SCADA Care product is a Service Level Agreemens (SLA) offered in three levels. It covers the most critical operational aspects of your wind farm such as IT security, availability, service and support, while ensuring and guaranteeing spare-parts procurement and supply. We check the condition of your SCADA system, identify potential problems and security-critical vulnerabilities, update your IT infrastructure to the state-of-the-art, and provide you with proactive, preventative solutions. Benefit from our extensive and comprehensive experience as manufacturer of SCADA systems for wind farms. We’ll support you in all phases of your business; from planning and design, all the way through to operations and decommissioning or retrofit of your SCADA system.
Immediate & competent support
Within the framework of n7® SCADA Care, you have a permanent contact person for Remote Support and for problem solving. Your contact person has detailed knowledge of your SCADA system. In fact, the entire n7® SCADA Care support-team has all the technical and subject-specific knowledge and skills and have more than 17 years of practical experience.
Proactive early-warning & prevention
If you don’t want to risk an untimely downtime of your SCADA system, production loss or unprotected exposure to IT-security threats, order one of the two Managed System Service Levels (Level 2 & 3) of the n7® SCADA Care program. This ensures that your SCADA system is automatically monitored and regularly inspected for errors, disturbances, potential threats and risks. Problems are thus recognized early, and can be addressed long before they can cause damage.
Ad-hoc delivery of spare parts
If the n7® SCADA Care early-warning system indicates errors in your hardware components, or show that they are operating on the upper end of their performance capacity, the component should be swapped out as soon as possible. If this component a critical part of your SCADA system, you run the risk of long-term reduction- or even loss of functionality. Within the framework of the „Life-Cycle Management“ Service Level of the n7® SCADA Care program, we’ll keep pre-configured spare parts in stock for you at reasonable prices and ensure that your replacement part is delivered to you at short notice.
Robust data backup is worth it
The „Life-Cycle Management“ of the n7® SCADA Care program encompasses a data-backup- and recovery-strategy for all the computer systems in your SCADA system, and implements this strategy at the start of our collaboration. This ensures that an up-to-date backup copy is always available to you, and limits data loss to an absolute minimum. We regularly check the functionality of the data-backups, and also expand its scope when additional computer systems are installed in your SCADA system.
Enhanced security through verified software updates
Within the framework of the n7® SCADA Care Life-Cycle Management, and in close collaboration with yourself, we update the software of your SCADA system. This also includes updates to security-relevant software and to software that is critical to the functionality of your SCADA System. However, before we implement these updates in your wind farm, we create a virtual clone of your SCADA system - including controllers and turbine PCs - in our test laboratory, and thoroughly test the impact and functionality of the updates on your SCADA system.
Service access guarantees prompt service
In order to perform our contractual services in the most optimal way, a secure access is created for natcon7 in your wind farm network. This allows us to access your system via a VPN - either using your existing components, or by using the n7® Supportbox. This offers very flexible ansd secure Service Login, thus minimizing configuration changes in your existing IT infrastructure. Additionally, the n7® Supportbox also offers enhanced monitoring capabilities included in the SCADA Care Level 2 und 3.
Features of the n7® SCADA Care Service Level
Designed to meet your specific needs
| Service Level 1 Remote Support | Service Level 2 System Management | Service Level 3 Life-Cycle Management | |
|---|---|---|---|
| Support hotline | ✓ | ✓ | ✓ |
| Prioritized support | ✓ | ✓ | ✓ |
| Firewall configuration | ✓ | ✓ | ✓ |
| Condition monitoring and early-warning system | ✓ | ✓ | |
| Periodic system checks | ✓ | ✓ | |
| Preconfigured spare parts kept in stock | ✓ | ||
| Data backup and recovery strategy | ✓ | ||
| Verified software updates | ✓ |