All operator stations are based on modern SIMATIC PCS 7 Industrial Workstations optimized for use as OS single station, OS client or OS server. The SIMATIC PCS 7 Industrial Workstations are suitable for use in harsh industrial environments and are characterized by powerful industrial PC technology combined with a Windows Desktop operating system (Windows 7 Ultimate 32/64-bit or Windows 10 Enterprise 2015 LTSB 64-bit) or a Windows Server operating system (Windows Server 2008 R2 Standard 64-bit or Windows Server 2012 R2 Standard 64-bit) from Microsoft. Standard components and interfaces from the PC world offer generous scope for system-, customer- or sector-specific options and expansions.

The operating system and the following ES/OS software of the SIMATIC PCS 7 process control system are factory installed:

• Single station: PCS 7 Engineering Software for AS/OS including OS Runtime software
• Server: PCS 7 OS Software Server
• Client: PCS 7 OS Software Client

You only need the corresponding software licenses in order to use the pre-installed SIMATIC PCS 7 software.

Depending on the customer's particular requirements, you can equip an OS Single Station, OS Server or OS Client with optional hardware components, such as:

• Hardware and software components for redundant operation
• Signal module for audible and visual signaling of messages
• Smart card reader for access protection
• Multi-monitor graphics card for operation of up to 4 process monitors
• Process monitors for office and industrial environments

See section "Industrial Workstation/IPC" for ordering data and detailed information on the product package and technology of the SIMATIC PCS 7 Industrial Workstations.

Single-user system (OS single station)

In a single station system architecture, all operation and monitoring functions for a complete project (plant/unit) are concentrated in one station.

This OS single station can be operated on the plant bus together with other single-user systems or parallel to a multi-user system. Redundant operation of two OS single stations (SIMATIC PCS 7 Single Station Redundancy) and their expansion with reference stations into a flat system configuration with up to 8 OS Single Stations is also possible.

Example of a flat system architecture

Depending on the version (IE or BCE), the OS single station can be connected to the Industrial Ethernet plant bus via one of the following network components:

• IE: CP 1623 communication module (pre-installed in SIMATIC PCS 7 Industrial Workstation), CP 1628 or CP 1613 A2 for communication with up to 64 automation systems
• BCE: Standard Ethernet network card (10/100/1000 Mbps) and Basic Communication Ethernet for communication with up to 8 automation systems (not redundancy stations)

Two 10/100/1000 Mbps Ethernet RJ45 ports are always integrated onboard for use as desired.

The OS engineering is located as standard in a separate engineering system

Multi-user system with client/server architecture

Example of multi-user system

A multiple station system consists of operator terminals (OS clients) which receive data (project data, process values, archive data, alarms and messages) from one or more OS servers over a terminal bus. The terminal bus can share the transmission medium with the plant bus or it can be designed as a separate bus (Industrial Ethernet with TCP/IP).

In this architecture, redundant OS servers may be set up to meet higher availability requirements. Critical applications running on the OS server are monitored by Health Check for software faults. If a fault is detected, switchover to the redundant system is triggered. Synchronization of the redundant OS servers takes place automatically and at high speed.

OS clients can access the data of not only one OS server/server pair, but from several OS servers/pairs of servers simultaneously (multi-client mode). This makes it possible to divide a plant into technological units and to distribute the data accordingly to several OS servers/pairs of servers. In addition to scalability, the advantage of distributed systems is the ability to decouple plant areas from each other, which results in higher availability.

SIMATIC PCS 7 supports multi-user systems with up to 18 OS servers or 18 redundant OS pairs of servers. In multi-client mode, OS clients can access data from some or all of the 18 OS servers/pairs of servers in parallel (up to 40 OS clients with simultaneous access to all).

The OS servers are designed in addition with client functions which permit them to access the data (archives, messages, tags, variables) from the other OS servers of the multi-user system. This means that process graphics on one OS server can also be linked with variables on other OS servers (area-independent displays).

Like the OS single stations, the OS servers can be connected to the Industrial Ethernet plant bus using one of the following network components

• IE: CP 1623 communication module (pre-installed in SIMATIC PCS 7 Industrial Workstation), CP 1628 or CP 1613 A2 for communication with up to 64 automation systems
• BCE: Standard Ethernet network card (10/100/1000 Mbps) and Basic Communication Ethernet for communication with up to 8 automation systems (not redundancy stations)

Two 10/100/1000 Mbps Ethernet RJ45 ports onboard can be used to connect to the terminal bus.

Data archiving

The OS Single Stations and OS servers already include a high-performance archiving system, configurable at run-time, based on Microsoft SQL Server with cyclic archives for short-term archiving of process values (typically for 1 to 4 weeks) and messages/events (typically for 2 months). This may be combined with an external data archiving system for long-term data storage. The Process Historian offered in the section "Process data archiving and reporting" is available for this purpose.

The archive data can be saved on all storage media supported by the operating system, for example, on a NAS (Network Attached Storage).