General

Yes.

• We are working on the transition to full 64-bit.
• WinCC OA V3.19 is the first version to be 2038 ready.
• Release date of V3.19 was December 2022.

Please keep in mind, that only the current and 2 past versions of WinCC OA are under full support, so eventually you should upgrade projects which have a lifetime expectancy beyond 2038.

A clear answer to this question is not possible because the required network resources depend on the size of the WinCC OA project (DPID) and the amount of value changes per second.

On large systems with a large DPID and a slow network connection between the WinCC OA servers and the remote UI, starting a WinCC OA panel can take a while because the full DPID must first be transmitted to the UI.

Finally, a slow connection may be enough if the opened WinCC OA panel receives very little update information. But a panel that receives a few 100 messages/sec. including the alert row, could exceed the network resources used in the same project.

On systems with slow network connection it is recommended by ETM professional control to test the situation from customer site in a test lab. With special vendor software it is possible to simulate a slow network. If the expected amount of msg/sec is known, it is also possible to calculate the requirement network resources because a typical WinCC OA message requires about 160 bytes on the wire.

In special circumstances with a small DPID and very few updates per second, a WinCC OA project has already been released with a modem connection between WinCC OA servers and remote client.

The required network connection between WinCC OA driver and PLC depends on the updates per second that the WinCC OA driver receives from the PLC. It is also possible to optimize this behavior when features like PollOnUse from the S7 driver are used in a project.

The following data was realized and tested with other WinCC OA projects, but this data is not a guarantee for other WinCC OA projects because, as already mentioned, every project is different. A test of the WinCC OA project should run with the expected load and a simulated network speed from customer site before the system is deployed on customer site.

In a real project with geographically distributed systems, a network connection of 4MBit/s and a latency of 700msec between the DRS and DIST connections via VSAT were realized with WinCC OA. In this case ETM professional control recommends using network accelerators from 3^rd party vendors

A connection of 512kBit/s and a latency of 50, 300 and 500 ms were also successfully tested in WinCC OA systems with DIST and RDB connections.

For the connection between redundant Servers a minimum of 100MBit and a very good latency is recommended because a lot of data needs to be exchanged between both hosts.

It depends.

We test and release our product for a specific OS configuration/version.

As far as minor OS versions are concerned, these are constantly being upgraded with WinCC OA patches and it is therefore recommended to update WinCC OA and the operating system equally and as released.

More than 70.000 automated tests run every day and ensure the high quality level of our product.

Unfortunately, it is in no way economical to test all possible WinCC OAversions and operating system combinations at the same time.

Please note that we support 3(!) major versions of WinCC OA and multiple operating system platforms at the same time.

You can find out which combination is supported with which (patch) version of WinCC OA at any time in our extensive product documentation. E.g., https://www.winccoa.com/documentation/WinCCOA/latest/en_US/WCCOA_Voraussetzungen/Voraussetzungen-03.html?hl=software%2Crequirements

What does this mean for you:

In a perfect world you would - also to have the latest security standard available - always use the latest patch of the newest WinCC OA version running on the respective supported OS version.

We acknowledge that this may not be possible/economically feasible for every operation.

Running on a non-supported combination mainly results in one thing:

You may still have support, but if errors are not reproducible in a supported configuration, the fix will be chargeable. Consider that this does not apply to outdated versions of operating systems or to unsupported or discontinued versions (Windows XP is not supported).

Please keep in mind:

• The closer the combination of OS and WinCC OA match to the supported ones, the small the chances an error occurs.
• If you remain e.g. for a longer time on a once supported combination, chances for an error to occur are much lower than when you would use a combination which was never supported.
• It is not recommended to vary in level (e.g. using a very recent WinCC OA version on an older OS version and the other way round).
• In very rare cases, there were errors in WinCC OA that were caused by an error in a very latest operating system build version(which at that time was not yet suppurted) which had to be fixed by the OS vendor.

No.

Within a WinCC OA system you must always use the same version Server and the Desktop UI client.

Although it is technically possible to create a connection between a client and a server of different versions (and this may even work fine for your use case), this is not officially supported and may result in unexpected behavior.

The only exception is the Mobile UI, which always features the latest version.

However, the connection with it is also restricted to servers with WinCC OA versions that are still in main line support.

Please have a look at our Software requirements page in our online documentation.

If the software you are requiring is not mentioned there, it is unfortunately not officially supported.

Please consider:

WinCC OA runs over 70.000 automated tests every night to ensure and maintain its high level of quality.

If you think of the large number of supported operating systems and already supported software, adding another one would increase the test efforts exponentially.

So what does that mean for you?

• In any case, please inform us about your requirement. If a considerable number of requests is received, chances are higher, that it will be put on the roadmap and we will be able to provide official support with an upcoming version of WinCC OA.

• You may run WinCC OA along your required software anyway. As WinCC OA usually has low dependencies, chances are high that it will work just perfectly fine.

  Several customers already applied this procedure and run their respective software without any issues along WinCC OA.

• You may ask for official support and would be willing to pay for it, this means you will get an offer. Then you may aim for a specific, supported version of WinCC OA.

  Your overall licensing volume of the specific project might be taken into account when providing the offer.

• If you run it and encounter a bug, this bug needs to be reproducible on an supported environment/software combination.

  If it is not reproducible there and you require a bug fix, you would be asked to cover the costs of the fix for your specific environment/software.

Yes.

For some Siemens hardware platforms (e.g. IPC377E) you will find the option to get it with Windows 10 IoT Enterprise.

This is a binary equivalent to Windows 10 Enterprise and mainly differs in licensing and deployment option.

See also: https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/windows/iot-core/windows-iot-enterprise

Please note that this does not apply to Windows 10 IoT Core.

You will find the current supported operating systems in the Software Requirements page of the product help.