AVEVA Edge (formerly InduSoft Web Studio): SCADA, Embedded HMI and IoT View runtimes, drivers, upgrades

AVEVA Edge, formerly InduSoft Web Studio, is AVEVA's software for building HMI, SCADA and dashboard projects. A project is developed once on a Windows workstation and then runs on a Windows PC or server, on a Windows Embedded panel or on a small Linux device, talking to the PLCs through its own drivers. This article follows AVEVA's Edge 2026 documentation. Where Edge sits among AVEVA's products: What is AVEVA.

1. What AVEVA Edge is and what it used to be called

AVEVA's product page names the product AVEVA Edge (formerly InduSoft Web Studio). AVEVA's customer FAQ from 2021 describes the change as mostly a brand-name change: version 2020 R2 (v20.0) was sold under both names with the same functions, and later versions carry only the AVEVA Edge name. The current documentation is Edge 2026, published on docs.aveva.com in October 2026.

Every project holds a tags database, communication drivers, animated screens and optional modules such as alarms, trends, recipes, reports, scripts, security and a database interface.

2. Inside a project: the tags database at the centre

The runtime is made of separate modules, among them the Background task that runs the worksheets, the Driver runtime, the OPC and TCP/IP tasks and the Viewer that draws the screens. AVEVA states that these modules never exchange data directly: they all go through the tags database. When a driver reads a new value from a PLC, it updates the tag, and the tags database passes the change to the Viewer, which then updates the screen.

Tags can be basic tags, arrays, classes (structures made of members) and indirect tags that point to other tags. Each tag has a scope: Server, the default, where one value is shared by all thin clients, or Local, where each station keeps its own copy.

3. The development environment and the target system

Projects are built in a ribbon-style Windows environment whose Project Explorer has four tabs: Global, Graphics, Tasks (the worksheets) and Comm (drivers, OPC and TCP/IP).

When a project is created, its target system is chosen. It combines the target platform, Windows or Embedded, with a product type that sets the maximum number of tags, from 150 up to Unlimited (10 million). The choice only guides development; the real limits come from the licence on each runtime computer. AVEVA recommends developing for the lowest target system when one project will run on computers with different licences.

Remote Management, in the same environment, downloads the project to a target station, starts or stops it and installs runtime files, through a small Remote Agent program on the target.

4. Runtime editions

Embedded is one target platform for both Embedded HMI and IoT View, so a project set to Embedded can run on either, and IoT View has more limitations. The full software needs .NET Framework 4.8 or later, which the Edge 2026 setup no longer installs.

5. Clients: Secure Viewer, Web Thin Client and Mobile Access

A thin client keeps no project files: the screens and all background and communication tasks stay on the runtime server. Edge offers three types:

• Secure Viewer: a standalone viewer program installed on the client PC.
• Web Thin Client: an ActiveX control that shows the screens in Microsoft Edge in Internet Explorer mode, with the pages published through IIS.
• Mobile Access: an HTML5 web interface for phones, tablets and most browsers, served by a web server (IIS or a CGI-enabled server such as Apache) on the runtime computer.

AVEVA recommends Mobile Access over the traditional Thin Client wherever possible, since Thin Client depends on Windows-only technology, though Mobile Access does not yet support every Thin Client feature. The licence on the runtime server sets how many thin clients may connect at the same time; the client needs no licence. A secondary data server address can be set so clients switch to a second server when the first fails. Another Edge project can also act as a thick client through the TCP/IP Client and Server tasks, which keep two project databases synchronised.

6. Drivers to the PLCs

AVEVA lists more than 240 built-in drivers, each a DLL that implements one device protocol; OPC is an alternative. Edge 2026 supports OPC UA as client and server, OPC DA 2.05 as client and server and OPC HDA as server. Device addresses are linked to tags in two kinds of worksheet: the Main Driver Sheet groups tags automatically for performance, and Standard Driver Sheets let the engineer set the scan of each group.

For Allen-Bradley plants, the documentation names these drivers:

Integrated tags count against the tag limit. Arrays of nested structures and aliases of module members cannot be integrated from RSLogix 5000. A write trigger on a memory-based driver such as ABTCP writes the whole block of registers, and any address in the block that is missing from the worksheet receives zero; this does not apply to name-based drivers such as ABCIP.

7. Alarms, trends, recipes and reports

Alarm and Trend worksheets run in the Background task and handle the alarms and the history without displaying them; an Alarm/Event Control or Trend Control on a screen shows the data. Trend history can be saved in a proprietary binary file, one per day, in an SQL database, or in AVEVA Historian 2023 or later through the Studio Database Gateway. Recipe worksheets load or save tag values in an .xml or .dat file. Report worksheets build text or RTF reports from current tag values and send them to a printer or a file. Scripts can use the built-in language, VBScript or Python, which Edge 2026 updates to Python 3.12.

8. Where it fits next to InTouch HMI and System Platform

AVEVA's 2026 release notes state that Edge is compatible and can coexist with System Platform 2026, including AVEVA Historian Server 2026 and later, and Edge trend data can be stored in AVEVA Historian. Our AVEVA service page describes Edge as HMI and SCADA for machines, skids and small systems on panel PCs and edge devices. The choice between InTouch HMI on its own and System Platform is covered in InTouch HMI or System Platform.

9. Upgrading an InduSoft Web Studio project

The documentation sets these rules:

• Later versions run projects developed in earlier versions. Opening and modifying a project in a later version upgrades it, and earlier versions cannot run it afterwards. AVEVA's 2021 FAQ adds that projects from any InduSoft Web Studio version work in AVEVA Edge 2020 without conversion.
• An upgraded project sent to a remote runtime that still runs an older version makes that runtime stop working. AVEVA states that all editions, for development and runtime, should have the same version number.
• A licence is issued for one family and sub-version (X.Y). A new version needs an upgraded licence; a service pack does not.
• Edge 2026 removes support for Sentinel hardkeys (Wibu-Systems hardkeys remain supported), removes the OPC XML client, so projects configured for OPC XML stop working, and removes Industrial Graphics and the Mobile Access Tiles feature.

10. Licensing as the documentation describes it

Edge can use AVEVA Enterprise Licensing, with a browser-based License Manager and a License Server, or the legacy licences: a softkey generated from the computer's site code, or a USB hardkey. The two systems cannot coexist on one installation, and a project created under one licence type opens in Evaluation Mode under the other until its target system is changed. The execution modes are Evaluation (40 hours in total), Demo (the project stops after two hours of continuous running), Engineering only (a running project stops after 72 hours of continuous use), Runtime only and Engineering + Runtime. AVEVA licensing in general: AVEVA licensing.

What TDL checks first

These are our own working habits on an existing InduSoft Web Studio or AVEVA Edge system:

• We check the version on the development station and on every runtime, because a project saved in a newer version will not run on an older runtime.
• We copy the whole project folder from each runtime before anyone opens it in a newer version.
• We note the runtime edition and target system of each station: SCADA, Embedded HMI or IoT View, and the product type.
• We list the drivers and stations to each PLC, look for OPC XML connections, and check Standard Driver Sheets with write triggers on memory-based drivers for gaps in the address range.
• We read the licence on each computer: Enterprise Licensing, softkey or hardkey, the hardkey maker (Sentinel or Wibu), version, tag limit and thin client count.
• We check each computer's Windows version and .NET Framework 4.8 against the Edge 2026 requirements, and how operators connect: Secure Viewer, Web Thin Client or Mobile Access.

How TDL approaches it

TDL Industrial Automation is a System Integrator member of the AVEVA Partner Ecosystem, and our AVEVA service page lists AVEVA Edge among the AVEVA software we build, extend and maintain. When a plant weighs keeping an old HMI against changing platform, see legacy HMI/SCADA migration paths.