Example of a SIMATIC PCS 7 plant with a stand-alone SIMATIC PCS 7 Management Console

The SIMATIC PCS 7 Management Console enables you to manage either individual SIMATIC PCS 7 plants or multiple plants of a SIMATIC PCS 7 plant network.

For small and medium-sized SIMATIC PCS 7 plants, the SIMATIC PCS 7 Management Console can be installed and operated on a PCS 7 engineering station.

However, a stand-alone SIMATIC PCS 7 Management Console is typically used for medium-sized and large SIMATIC PCS 7 plant networks. For the single-station or server versions of SIMATIC PCS 7 Industrial Workstation that are suitable as the basic hardware for such an exclusive SIMATIC PCS 7 Management Console, see "Industrial Workstation/IPC".

The central SIMATIC PCS 7 Management Console communicates with "agents" on the relevant SIMATIC PCS 7 Industrial Workstations in a SIMATIC PCS 7 plant. These Management Console agents run local SIMATIC PCS 7 Management Console jobs and return the results.

Secure authentication of communication between the SIMATIC PCS 7 Management Console and the Management Console agents is ensured by the Kerberos protocol.

Note:

To make use of the full scope of performance of the Management Console, in addition to a "SIMATIC PCS 7 Management Console" license an additional "Management Console Agent" license is required for each SIMATIC PCS 7 Industrial Workstation managed using Management Console. The Management Console Agents are available in cumulative sets with 10, 50 and 100 licenses. Unlimited use of the system inventory function is possible even without licenses.