What is SCADA, AMI, historians?
SCADA, AMI and historians are three core operational systems in utilities and industrial plants. SCADA is supervisory control and data acquisition for running networks and processes. AMI is advanced metering infrastructure that collects interval reads from customer meters. A historian is a database that stores time-series data from these systems for analysis and records.
What it is
SCADA connects remote terminal units and programmable logic controllers at pump stations, reservoirs, treatment works and substations to a control room. Operators use it to see levels, pressures and flows and to start, stop or adjust equipment.
AMI replaces manual meter reading with meters that report interval consumption over a communications network. It supports billing, leak alerts at the customer side and analysis of demand patterns.
A historian stores the readings from SCADA and other control systems over long periods so engineers can trend, report and investigate. Each of the three systems is built for a specific job, and their data often sits in separate places.
Where it is used
Water and wastewater utilities, electric and gas utilities, municipal networks, large campuses and process plants such as dairy and manufacturing run some combination of SCADA, AMI and historians.
How it is measured
The data from these systems is the raw material for network analysis.
- Flows, pressures and levels from SCADA points
- Interval consumption from AMI meters
- Long-term trends and events from the historian
- Alarm and control action logs
How Aqueduct helps
Aqueduct reads alongside SCADA, AMI and historians. Control stays with SCADA.
- aQ WaterGuard combines SCADA flows with AMI reads to build a balance by district
- Night flow baselines per district flag where losses are rising
- Findings become tickets in your CMMS with the evidence attached
- Aqueduct can be deployed on-prem where operational data must stay on site