Did you know that your PLC and SCADA software is also a system where you can control the version ?
People who develop projects with software languages such as C#, Python, R, ... constantly use systems such as Git and GitHub. People who use it have experienced that it has serious benefits. However, hardware-based software (eg Ladder in PLC, FBD, CFC) has a different structure compared to these languages. Therefore, hardware-based software developers generally do not use version control software such as Git and GitHub. Because structurally GitHub is not suitable for this job. But there is a version control system suitable for this, it's called versiondog.
Version Control and Change Management for Automation Systems Used in Production with AUVESY-MDT
There is a software called versiondog developed by AUVESY-MDT. This software allows you to control versions and changes in automation systems. So what exactly does this mean? Let me explain through an example. You have Siemens S7-400CPU. You prepared your software using Ladder with Simatic Manager. Let's say this process took 2 weeks, you saved your project by making additions to the diagram every day. Just on the 14th day, you realized something that you want to go back to the 5th day of the project and try something after that stage. If you have saved your project by specifying the date (ProjectName_CPU_Date) with separate names each day, you can revert to that version. Otherwise, it is unlikely that you can remember where and what you added in all those functions. Let's say you save your project every day with a date. Very nice.. You went to the field and threw the software you prepared into the PLC. Your software that works perfectly in the office; He started making strange mistakes on the field. You wanted to open the file you made your backups and return to your software from 1 day ago. But on the last day, you added your night to your day and wrote dozens of lines of code into different functions. So how will you remember all the changes you made on the last day? You will have to rethink and write…
Manual version control is better than no version control at all. However, there are some points where manual version control is blocked. Like the example I gave above. This and similar scenarios often happen to automation. As more and more automation systems are installed day by day, the list goes on and on when we say version control of PLC, HMI, SCADA software of every system installed, version controls of the configuration files of the sensors used in the project, version controls of the prepared CAD data, version controls of EPLAN projects, version controls of Robot Simulation software. . After a certain stage, you need a system where you can do version controls. This is where versiondog software comes to your rescue.
So what does the versiondog software provide us? In fact, it is very easy to explain this to people who use the Git system. For automation systems, we can say Git system. What does versiondog do?
Communicate with different brand products and make version controls.
Make periodic backups at the times and intervals you specify.
Follow who changed what and when, what commit you wrote while making these changes and published them all on versiondog.
View the differences between versions. For example; You have made some changes and saved in a PLC software written in FBD. The system shows you the differences between the two software versions by marking them on the FBD blocks. These are life-saving features in critical times.
Also versiondog allows you to report changes.
Let's say you have two projects that you have not followed with versiondog before. If you want to see the differences between these two projects; There is a section called free compare in the software. You can view the differences by downloading the software you have here.
Also version control your files such as PDF, Word, Excel.
The system has features that I can't count. It belongs to such software and is suitable for use by users.
For detailed information about the product;
I would like to thanks Mersin Kervancılar from iAT Digital for their information, Nicolas Lehhman and Stefan Jesse from AUVESY-MDT, and also to Digitalist Marketing for the nice webinar.
I wonder if versiondog is the Git of the automation industry?
Do you think software in the automation industry is shared as open source on a platform like GitHub?
