As mentioned earlier a good meter and/or process meter coupled with a few basic hand tools can go a long ways towards testing and repairing various equipment and communication links, but that’s not all you need to get good at testing and configuring SCADA Systems. There’s still a lot to go over before you can truly work your system end to end. There are a few basic tools that you’ll need to become very familiar if not extremely proficient with before we even head into the deep waters of system programming. Most if not all of these tools are readily available for a basic laptop based system. A laptop is much easier to carry around than a desktop. If you want to push the envelope – a mini pc and PDA sometimes do a pretty decent job on a much smaller platform. First let’s start off with my list of basic fundamental requirements for a test laptop.




· Spreadsheet program: There are a few decent programs that work very well such as Excel 2003/2007 (Microsoft Office), Quattro Pro X3 (Word Perfect X3), and Calc (Open Office). A spreadsheet comes in handy for displaying CSV files which many logging programs (Including some data logging DMM and scope meters) use to store time and event based data. This also works well for organizing and designing point lists for system devices and even your main HMI and Master station. An added benefit is the ability to build and insert functions and formulas, which allow scaling, and calculation input/outputs. I recommend you learn how to use the functions and simple macros. With the addition of XML and OLE based OPC interoperability the simple spreadsheet serves some very complex needs.

· Text editors & word processor: You’ll have to learn to create comprehensive documentation in a professional manner as well as read documentation with some sort of reader depending on format. Word, WordPerfect X3, and Writer are all very flexible word processors. There will times when you will find a text editor is preferred for viewing raw data including Notepad, Vedit, UltraEdit, TextEdit, TextPad, and many more commercial, built in, and even freeware editors. A text editor can be used to edit database dump, data capture files, HTML, and open a lot of files you just might want to take a peek at. Not a bad trick when you think about it.


· Email client: These days we rely heavily on communication via e-mail. You’ll need a handy email program and account if you want to exchange information, and files. Being able to upload and download files comes in handy when you need to send a configuration file or update that could get you back up and running. You may want to send a copy of what you are working on back to someone who can give you a hand at resolving an issue. Don’t forget you’ll need access to the Internet to get the most out of your email account. A decent compress/uncompress program wouldn’t hurt either.

· Terminal Emulator: comes in handy for accessing a lot of different equipment that support serial access. Some devices let you view configuration settings and data TX/RX with a basic Terminal program. HyperTerminal, Putty, and even old ProComm do a decent job in this arena. Terminal to terminal testing has helped a lot of testers resolve baud rate and other communication configuration issues during end-to-end testing. I type something on my terminal at this end; hopefully you see it correctly on your end. Now the other end returns the favor. Sometimes you don’t see what gets typed at the other end. This is not good. Oh well, you’re a tester – time to troubleshoot.

· Telnet: A sophisticated cousin of the old dumb terminal, but now you can telnet across an Ethernet TCP/IP based network. Just think, this has been around for a long time. I think even back to the early 70s. You may already use Telnet to configure remote equipment. That equipment probably acts very Unix-like.


· Network monitor: (Snort, Wireshark, and WINDump) These are just a few network monitoring tools that let you see just what’s going on in your network. Vista even has a nice little Network and Sharing center to help you troubleshoot your network connection. Don’t forget to make use of your good old command line tools: ipconfig, Ping, and Tracert. Boy, I still love that good old DOS stuff. There are some decent built in tools in a lot of your modern data concentrators that can help you troubleshoot your connections and some of these are accessed through your web browser.


· PDF Viewer: Everybody loves to send me PDFs for manuals and one-line diagrams. I still hate PDFs, but they have come a long way. Make sure you can at least open them when they show up in your email.