What is Ignition: Gateway, Designer, Vision and Perspective, Allen-Bradley drivers, Edge and licensing

Ignition is the SCADA and industrial application platform made by Inductive Automation. Plants meet it when they want web-based operator screens, many users without a licence per client, or plant data in SQL databases next to their existing PLCs. This article explains how Ignition is built and licensed, from the Ignition 8.3 user manual: the Gateway, the Designer, the Vision and Perspective visualisation modules, the drivers for Allen-Bradley controllers, the historian, Ignition Edge, redundancy and licence activation. For SCADA in general, see What is SCADA.

1. One server, unlimited clients

Inductive Automation describes Ignition as server-based: one Gateway is installed, and everything else connects to it. The licence belongs to that server, not to the clients, and it covers unlimited clients, sessions, tags and projects. Ignition is modular, so a plant buys only the modules it uses, either one by one or as a Solution Suite. Ignition is built on Java and runs on Windows, macOS and Linux, and a Gateway backup made on one operating system can be restored on another.

2. The Gateway

The Gateway is the service that runs everything: it is a web server, reached from a browser on any computer in the network, by default on port 8088. Device connections, database connections, security, projects, modules, alarming, licensing, backups and redundancy are all configured on the Gateway webpage. Several Gateways can be joined in a Gateway Network to share data. The Gateway runs as an operating system service, so on Windows it starts and stops like any other service.

3. The Designer and projects

Projects are built in the Designer, which is started from the Designer Launcher on any computer that can reach the Gateway. When a project is saved, the changes go back to the Gateway, where every project is stored centrally. Several engineers can open Designers on the same project at the same time, and a preview mode lets them operate the screens before deploying the change.

4. Vision or Perspective

Ignition has two visualisation modules:

Both modules bind component properties to tags, expressions, database queries and tag history. A Vision Client that loses the Gateway shows a Connection Lost message and keeps trying to reconnect.

5. Connecting to Allen-Bradley and other devices

Device drivers are modules of the Ignition OPC UA server and are configured under Connections on the Gateway. The Allen-Bradley Ethernet module provides these drivers:

A controller reached through a bridge or an Ethernet module such as an ENBT or EN2T needs a connection path, written in pairs of entries, so a valid path always has an even number of values. Inductive Automation notes that direct connections to RSLinx Emulate 5000 are not supported, and that firmware older than version 16 is not officially supported. Other built-in drivers cover devices such as Siemens, Modbus, BACnet and DNP3, and OPC UA connections reach third-party OPC servers.

Every device connection has diagnostic tags: Connected, State and Status, plus sampling metrics. The OverloadFactor tag shows whether the device keeps up with the requested rate: above 100%, items are being read slower than configured.

6. Historian, alarms and reports

The Historian Core module stores tag history through a history provider, which can be an embedded option or an external database. A value is stored according to the tag's sample mode, its minimum and maximum time between samples, and its deadband. Ignition 8.3 adds a Core Historian based on QuestDB that writes to disk through a write-ahead log, while the legacy internal historian and external SQL historians pass data through Store and Forward so that records are queued while the database is unavailable. The alarming engine can notify users by email, SMS and voice, and the Reporting module produces PDF reports on a schedule.

7. Ignition Edge and redundancy

Ignition Edge is a lighter edition for field devices and panel PCs, including ARM hardware. An Edge licence works only on an Edge Gateway. An Edge Gateway keeps up to 35 days or 10 million points of tag history locally, one week of alarm journal and audit log, and a single project. For availability, Ignition redundancy uses two Gateways: a master and a backup, with the master replicating its configuration to the backup. Two Edge Gateways can also be made redundant, but an Edge Gateway fails over only to another Edge Gateway.

8. Licence activation and the trial

Without a licence, every module runs in a two-hour trial that can be reset any number of times from the Gateway, while the Gateway webpage and the Designer are not affected. A standard licence has a six-character key and is activated online or, without internet, offline with an activation file. A key can be unactivated and moved to another Gateway, and offline activation is available only for six-character keys. Eight-character keys are leased licences, intended for containers and cloud deployments. When modules are added to a licence, it is reactivated from the Licensing page of the Gateway.

What we settle before choosing an architecture

These are TDL's working habits, not Inductive Automation requirements:

• Who uses the screens and from where: control room computers, offices, or phones and tablets, which decides between Vision and Perspective.
• Which PLCs and firmware versions are on site, which decides the driver.
• Where history is stored and for how long, and whether the plant already runs a SQL database.
• Whether the system needs a redundant Gateway, and whether machines need Edge Gateways.

How TDL approaches it

TDL Industrial Automation is listed as Certified (Ignition Certified Integrator) in Inductive Automation's integrator directory, and is a Sepasoft MES Certified Integrator for MES modules on Ignition. We connect Ignition to the Allen-Bradley and other PLCs already running on site and read the existing controller tags, so the PLC programs change only where a needed signal is missing. More on this service: Ignition SCADA integrator in Vietnam and MES on Ignition.