1. The Problem

Challenge: Consolidate multi-site energy operations with heterogeneous equipment and multiple protocols, preserving local autonomy (history, alarms, synoptic) while enabling a unified corporate view (Energy Center), with high availability and point/tag scale.

Specific pain points:

  • Integration of multiple vendors and legacy interfaces (OPC DA) in a distributed topology.

  • Lack of a central view and standardized alarms/history across areas.

  • Need for redundancy and fault tolerance (servers, network, clients).

Impact: Slow responses to energy events, engineering rework, and higher operational risk due to fragmented data.

Example: “Without a unified central network, the energy team had to manually correlate events and histories across areas, increasing MTTR.”

2. The Solution

2.1 Overview

  • FrameworX Editions
    Areas: FrameworX Edge/Enterprise Site with history, alarms, synoptic, and local drivers.
    Center: FrameworX Enterprise consolidating all areas.
    Clients: SmartClient & WebAssembly/HTML5 for operations and engineering.

  • Historian/Alarms: Standardized per area and replicated/untouched at the center.

  • Communications: Drivers for Altus, GE, Siemens, Rockwell, OPC DA (legacy) and TCP/IP/Serial channels; recommend OPC UA where applicable.

  • Scale: 30k+ points; per-area synoptic; server redundancy at the center and in critical areas; multiple concurrent clients.

2.2 Logical Diagram (high level

[Operational Areas (15+)] • FrameworX Site (local) • Drivers: Altus / GE / Siemens / Rockwell / OPC DA • History & Alarms (standardized) • Per-area synoptic / Local operations • Store & Forward / Scripts • TCP/IP & Serial [Energy Center] FrameworX Enterprise (Central) • Area Consolidation • Corporate Hist/Alarms • Integrations (OPC/DB/APIs) • Redundancy (HA) Clients (SC/Web/Mobile)

2.3 Topology

Layer

Component

Role

Notes

Area

FrameworX Site

Acquisition, history, alarms, HMI

Independent local operation; standardized models

Transport

TCP/IP, Serial

Telemetry and control

Network segmentation; QoS; serial/IP gateways

Central

FrameworX Enterprise

Consolidation, orchestration, APIs

Cross-area normalization; corporate dashboards

Data

Historian/DB

Corporate repository

Retention/partitioning strategy

Clients

SmartClient/WebAssembly

Operations & engineering

Multiple concurrent clients

2.4 Network Architecture

  • Segmentation by area and VLANs; redundant links where critical; TLS encryption for inter-site traffic.

  • Gateways for serial↔IP conversion (RS-485/RS-232) and secure tunneling.

2.5 Redundancy & Failover

  • Central: Cluster/HA for real-time services, history, and alarms; database with tested backup/restore.

  • Areas: Independent operation; store-and-forward for network resilience; automatic reintegration.

2.6 Protocols & Equipment

Drivers/Interfaces: Altus, GE, Siemens, Rockwell, OPC DA (legacy) and OPC UA (recommended) + serial/TCP drivers.
Channels: TCP/IP and serial (RS-232/RS-485 per equipment).

2.7 Scale & Capacity (confirm/validate)

  • Active areas: 15+

  • Total points: 30,000+

2.8 Third-Party Integrations

Legacy OPC DA; gateways/proxies; DB connectors for corporate BI; APIs for maintenance/assets.

3. Key Enablers

Industrial multiprotocol (native drivers + OPC DA/UA)
Covers a heterogeneous ecosystem without heavy middleware.

Distributed solutions (Area/Central/Clients) with independent updates
Reduces maintenance windows and enables controlled rollback.

Standardized History and Alarms
Common model across areas; simplifies corporate KPIs/SLAs.

WebAssembly/HTML5 + SmartClient
Scalable operations and corporate access without fixed thin-client dependencies.

Enterprise redundancy (HA) and store-and-forward
Business continuity and data consistency under network/host failures.

Why wasn’t this trivial on other platforms?
Combination of broad multiprotocol coverage, distributed/independent deployment, unified alarms/history model, and corporate HA at 30k+ points.

4. The Results

  • Consolidated 15+ plant operations into a single Energy Center managing 30,000+ data points across heterogeneous equipment (Altus, GE, Siemens, Rockwell), eliminating manual event correlation and significantly reducing Mean Time to Repair (MTTR)

  • Achieved zero data loss during network disruptions through store-and-forward mechanisms and redundant server architecture, ensuring continuous operations with automatic failover and data reintegration

  • Standardized historical data and alarms across all areas while preserving local operational autonomy, enabling accurate corporate KPI tracking and real-time decision making through unified dashboards

  • Reduced engineering overhead and operational risk by implementing a distributed architecture that allows independent area updates without system-wide maintenance windows, while providing simultaneous multi-user access via SmartClient and WebAssembly interfaces

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