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

<svg xmlns="http://www.w3.org/2000/svg" viewBox="0 0 1200 500" width="100%" height="auto" role="img" aria-label="Operational Areas to Energy Center to Clients">
  <defs>
    <style>
      text{font-family: ui-sans-serif, -apple-system, Segoe UI, Roboto, Helvetica, Arial, "Noto Sans", "Liberation Sans", sans-serif; font-size:16px; fill:#111}
      .sub{fill:#333; font-size:15px}
      .box{fill:#f9f9f9; stroke:#333; rx:10; ry:10}
      .outer{fill:#fff; stroke:#ccc; rx:16; ry:16}
      .dashed{stroke-dasharray:6 4}
      .cap{font-weight:600}
    </style>
    <marker id="arrow" markerWidth="10" markerHeight="7" refX="10" refY="3.5" orient="auto" markerUnits="strokeWidth">
      <polygon points="0 0, 10 3.5, 0 7" fill="#333"></polygon>
    </marker>
  </defs>

  <!-- background -->
  <rect class="outer" x="0" y="0" width="1200" height="500"></rect>

  <!-- Left block -->
  <rect class="box" x="40" y="60" width="480" height="280"></rect>
  <text x="52" y="84" class="cap">[Operational Areas (15+)]</text>
  <text x="60" y="112" class="sub">• FrameworX Site (local)</text>
  <text x="60" y="136" class="sub">• Drivers: Altus / GE / Siemens / Rockwell / OPC DA</text>
  <text x="60" y="160" class="sub">• History & Alarms (standardized)</text>
  <text x="60" y="184" class="sub">• Per-area synoptic / Local operations</text>
  <text x="60" y="208" class="sub">• Store & Forward / Scripts</text>
  <text x="60" y="232" class="sub">• TCP/IP & Serial</text>

  <!-- Right outer dashed block -->
  <rect class="box dashed" x="680" y="60" width="480" height="280"></rect>
  <text x="692" y="84" class="cap">[Energy Center]</text>

  <!-- Right inner block -->
  <rect class="box" x="700" y="90" width="440" height="220"></rect>
  <text x="712" y="114" class="cap">FrameworX Enterprise (Central)</text>
  <text x="720" y="142" class="sub">• Area Consolidation</text>
  <text x="720" y="166" class="sub">• Corporate Hist/Alarms</text>
  <text x="720" y="190" class="sub">• Integrations (OPC/DB/APIs)</text>
  <text x="720" y="214" class="sub">• Redundancy (HA)</text>

  <!-- Arrow -->
  <line x1="520" y1="200" x2="700" y2="200" stroke="#333" marker-end="url(#arrow)"></line>

  <!-- Clients -->
  <text x="600" y="420" text-anchor="middle" class="cap">Clients (SC/Web/Mobile)</text>
</svg>

2.3 Topology

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

In this section...