What is the “WinCC OA Disaster Recovery System“?

There are two geographically separate control centres. One control centre (=Master Control Centre) contains the Master Control System, which consists of two redundant server computers. The other control centre (=Disaster Recovery Centre) is geographically separate and contains a second redundant server system, identical with the Master Control System, called the Disaster Recovery System.

More specifically, the Disaster Recovery System is a geographically separate security concept for the Master Control System. In an emergency situation, the Disaster Recovery System will assume all monitoring and control activities of the Master Control System. This routine, known as “failover”, ensures optimal protection in the event of a complete breakdown, which expands the present SCADA redundancy concepts and reduces data loss to a minimum.
In this way, the function of the Hot-Standby System in the Master Control Centre is supplemented with a Warm-Standby System in the Disaster Recovery Centre. The data between the two systems is continually synchronised. In an emergency, the Disaster Recovery centre will take over the monitoring and control tasks of the Master Control System within seconds.