Be Prepared for the Worst with FactoryTalk® AssetCentre Disaster Recovery

Wayne Welk8/25/2022

Be honest - do you have good backups of your PLC programs? What about your VFD configurations? Or industrial network switches? Yes, of course, you have a copy of those parameters somewhere on your computer, but could you quickly locate them and recover from a disaster? And how would you know if the copy you have stashed away is the latest version?

This is part 1 of our Maintaining Your Critical Automation Assets series. Part 2 will cover ControlFLASH Plus™ for device firmware management. Part 3 will discuss FactoryTalk® Updater for automation software version management.

Backups

With FactoryTalk® AssetCentre from Rockwell Automation®, that task of backing up your critical automation devices can be made routine. FactoryTalk AssetCentre will perform automatic backups of your running application code and configurations of networked devices on your plant floor. AssetCentre will then compare those automatic backups with the last know copies and alert you of any differences. You can quickly recover if an unwanted change is made on the plant floor, or if an operating device fails.

LifeCycle Status

FactoryTalk AssetCentre will also report current lifecycle status information for all Rockwell Automation devices on your plant floor, letting you know where your operations may be at risk of obsolescence.

Disaster recovery

FactoryTalk AssetCentre Standard provides an easy entry into asset management and Disaster Recovery. This package Includes a FactoryTalk AssetCentre server, plus Disaster Recovery for Rockwell Automation devices and 100 assets. Additional assets can be added as needed. View the FactoryTalk AssetCentre Installation Guide for recommended system specifications and required software.

Disaster Recovery natively supports the following devices:

Controllers:

ControlLogix® (v16 firmware and higher)
CompactLogix™ (v16 firmware and higher)
GuardLogix® family (v16 firmware and higher)
MicroLogix™
SLC™ 500
PLC-5®

Visualization:

PanelView™ Standard
PanelView™ Plus
PanelView™ Plus 6
PanelView™ Plus 7
MobileView™
FactoryTalk® View Site Edition application (v11 and higher)
FactoryTalk® Directory configuration

Drives and Power:

PowerFlex® 4, 40, 400 families
PowerFlex® 70, 7xx families
PowerFlex® 523, 525
PowerFlex® DC family
E300™ Electronic Overload Relay (Series B and later)

Network Devices:

Stratix® 5700
Stratix® 5400
Stratix® 5410
Stratix® 5800
Stratix® 8000
Stratix® 8300

Want to learn more?

Contact your local sales team at The Reynolds Company and let us help you create a comprehensive backup and recovery plan to help you manage and protect your automation assets.