The specifics of PAC as a type of IT products

The Decree of the Government of the Russian Federation No. 2461 of December 28, 2022 gives a detailed definition of PAC: a software and hardware complex is a set of technical and software tools that work together to perform one or more special tasks. In particular, PACS should be an electronic computer or a specialized electronic device, the functional and technical characteristics of which are determined exclusively by a set of software and hardware, and cannot be implemented during their separation.

Which implies "hardware and software complex"

Thus, the key feature of PAC is the synergy and deep integration of components, which cannot be achieved on the basis of standard platforms and standard software, - emphasizes Viktor Urusov, - And this implies constant refinement and optimization, change of existing solutions on the market and their aggregation. Software and hardware platforms should be developed together, not just integrated with each other. This will allow you to get unique characteristics of the complexes.

PAC in the context of the discussed issue means software and hardware complexes optimized for solving specific problems, such as, for example, database machines or virtualization, he says. - The important distinguishing features of such complexes, in my opinion, are the correct design, selection of components, software configuration, configuration of the solution with the necessary functionality and, of course, optimization of the solution.

The router has special software, without which it will not be able to perform its main function - to control the flow of information. But if you rearrange this software to a standard computer, we are unlikely to be able to solve the routing problem. In other words, the hardware complex is PAC controlled by some proprietary software that is unlikely to solve other problems.

PAC, as interpreted by the Decree, includes a certain set of components, a certain configuration that is designed specifically for ideal software compatibility, he explains. - The result of such design, configuration and configuration, in fact, will be a final out-of-the-box solution that can be assigned a serial number.

Since all systems have already been configured and debugged at the plant, the time for introducing these solutions into the productive environment is much lower, compared to the classic "project" approach to creating an IT infrastructure, "emphasizes Alexander Sysoev.

A complete solution that can be purchased by the customer will perform clearly defined tasks, have an understandable structure and set of components and software. Thus, the customer's technical specialists will be relieved of the need to carry out their own tests for the compatibility of hardware and software, optimize servers, disks, memory, etc., install and configure the software part, maintain such complexes.

In fact, by purchasing any PAC from the register, the customer receives a "single window" to contact any questions regarding both the software and hardware components of the PAC, the specialist emphasizes.

The hardware implies the selection of equipment, the determination of the correct configuration in order to get a large utilization and productivity, etc., - says the specialist. - For this story to be effective, a clear delineation of areas of responsibility is necessary. At the same time, the PAC holder must be one - this is the vendor who will collect the totality of all existing layers, as well as have access and expertise in each of them, be responsible in general for the solution and its support.

Our company is a developer and manufacturer of both hardware and embedded software. We closely interact with manufacturers of software systems and Russian operating systems and accumulate market requirements for hardware. Now the Russian market is in a situation where the selection of ready-made "iron" from a huge number of proposals is almost impossible, but we can develop and produce our own domestic equipment for one specific task or a set of such tasks. At the same time, we take into account both industry requirements, taking into account where and in what conditions our equipment will be used, and the requirements necessary for the operation of upper-level software.

For example, everyone's favorite intelligent transport systems can be decomposed into a set of such software and hardware systems - from managing traffic lights to means of photo and video recording of traffic violations, he explains.

PAC can be a purely software solution. DBMS is sold all over the world by PACS - in fact, these are software stacks for which specific characteristics of hardware and architecture are indicated. Oracle Corporation has already accustomed the market to this phenomenon. Why not take this experience into service?

Today we are seeing an expansion in the range of IT threats, and a disparate IT landscape is leading to even more increased risks. Vulnerabilities most often appear at joints, when integrating components and assembling ready-made systems, he notes. - Under these conditions, PAC is a solution that initially provides a higher level of information security, since the manufacturer ensures the timely installation and update of the necessary software throughout the technology stack.

Admission to the use of equipment not from the register as part of the PAC should be a rare exception and very clearly, thoroughly reasoned.

Now the most significant characteristic of the PAC is unambiguously importonic dependence on any - "friendly" or not - component of the base. It is also worth highlighting the provision of information security and reliability requirements.

They must be comprehensive ready-made proven solutions. Manufacturers are required to produce them massively and serially, as well as take responsibility for the operation of the entire complex, and not its individual elements. This hybrid approach creates comfortable conditions for PAC users. This is confirmed in practice: the spectrum of customer attention shifts from integrated complexes to hardware and software.

More PACS, good and different

An important feature of modern PACS is the wide variety of types of such complexes. PAC, which provides the functionality of a corporate storage system or virtualized infrastructure of a geographically distributed enterprise, is one pole of the spectrum of possible implementations of the PAC concept.

Any modern controller does not exist without internal "firmware," that is, programs that are sometimes not inferior in complexity to the complexity of top-level software.

In terms of such systems, equipment for industry requires special attention today. According to experts, in the field of solutions and systems of industrial APCS today there is a difficult situation associated with the departure of leading Western vendors from the Russian market, because they accounted for most of the implemented solutions for APCS of large industrial enterprises.

Today, solutions of domestic software and equipment manufacturers cannot cover all the needs of industrial customers. In addition, they are often incompatible with each other and with solutions already used in industrial enterprises. The Russian Federation lacks a number of fundamentally important standards in the field of industrial automation, there is no generally accepted reference architecture of solutions. There are also no comprehensive solutions required to create APCS systems, including no domestic development environment for programmable logic controllers (PLCs).

The point is that the industrial automation segment has its own specific challenges, and approaches developed and tested for IT systems cannot be applied to it. Moreover, Sergey Sedov, specialist of the IT, automation and telecommunications directorate of Gazprom Neft, speaks of a huge gap in the development of these two segments - in terms of technology, approaches to the implementation of services and development, speed of implementation and modernization. {{quote 'We see rapid growth in the IT segment - rapid changes, implementation of flexible methodologies, continuous delivery technologies, increased efficiency and transparency of services through the implementation of a service approach and others. And the industrial automation segment is a set of isolated systems with rigid algorithms and limited integration, - explains the specialist. }}

Industrial Automation Architecture

Source: Gazprom Neft, April, 2023

Layered and segmented approaches are a consequence of the heterogeneity of tasks and available technologies at each management level. This division is not conditional at all, emphasizes Sergey Sedov, because proprietary data buses are associated with each level, and in the classical PCS architecture, vendor dependence is more than 90%.

Vendor-dependence of current APCS solutions

Source: Gazprom Neft, April, 2023

Plus, adds Sergey Vikhorev, there is a direct dependence of the controller on the actuator itself, which is also vendor-dependent, and this further exacerbates the problems of import substitution in Russian APCS systems. That is why Sergey Cherkasov, head of the department of digitalization of production of EuroChem, says that today the focus of attention of industrial enterprises - provision of operability of current hardware and software tools and solutions of PCS through parallel import mechanisms, direct replacement of hardware and software tools and solutions of PCS of departed world vendors through reverse engineering mechanisms and development of fundamentally different architecture of PCS solutions in order to exclude and/or minimize risks of vendor dependence, both in terms of supplied complex solutions and in terms of component base of PCS elements.

One way or another, all ways to remove the restrictions of classical systems boil down to the unification and unification of tires, the unification of the information model of equipment and processes, - notes Sergey Sedov.

Thus, Gartner analysts propose to transfer the concept of "platform" and corresponding functions from IT to industrial automation. In this case, a whole block of built-in security functions is added to the tasks of automating heterogeneous functions.

Gartner Advanced Industrial Automation Platform Architecture

The NAMUR Association has worked out and standardized approaches to maximize effects from automation without changing the classical layer structure. The main emphasis of specialists is placed on the tasks of monitoring and optimization of technological processes of production.

The NAMUR Association proposes to supplement the classical architecture of promautomatization with a monitoring and optimization layer. At the field level, it is assumed to receive data from the PCS/RSU controllers in read-only mode (diodes), aggregate and normalize data in the universal OPC UA bus. This protocol is based on open standards and has a formalized information model of equipment. The resulting signals are supposed to be transmitted to the MES layer.

Although this approach covers the main problems of industrial automation at the enterprise scale, in the basic PCS, the previously listed problems remain unresolved. Including security problems, - notes Sergey Sedov.

A more radical approach is offered by the Open Group consortium, created as part of the Open Process Automation Forum, - to replace proprietary buses and data formats between components with open components, that is, to implement open industrial standards at all key points of interaction between hardware and software components of automation systems. In the corresponding technical architectures, O-PAS appears, for example, DCN (Distributed Control Node) - a container with a PLC (IEC61131, IEC61499) or a container with a Linux application (for example, SCADA) that can be launched in a virtualized environment, on an EDGE controller or IIoT gateway, as well as OCF (OPAS Connectivity Framework) - a universal data bus that supports real-time exchange.

Since 2021, Gazprom Neft has been implementing a project to create an open platform for industrial automation, which is based on international O-PAS, Namur Open Architecture standards, taking into account their adaptation to the legislation of the Russian Federation. Specific features of modern software and hardware systems determine the emergence of new approaches to their creation.

Platform and modular approach to PAC

Currently, all foreign manufacturers of infrastructure products, including hardware and software for the corporate segment, have left the Russian market. Among them are manufacturers of network equipment that provides a single fault-tolerant and disaster-tolerant network infrastructure distributed across several data centers. Foreign storage solutions used reliable distributed storage systems that provided continuous high-speed access, data center-level replication, and backup.

As a reliable platform for launching applications, systems were used virtualizations for flexible deployment virtual machines with the necessary characteristics and capabilities of movement both within the data center and between them, both in normal and emergency modes. All of these systems worked together in organizations and provided distributed corporate infrastructure services as the foundation for business systems with the ability to dynamically allocate the necessary resources.

Today, there is an active development of products of domestic manufacturers of equipment and software on the market. However, it should be noted that the construction of full-fledged analogues of imported infrastructure systems using Russian components is limited and a different approach is needed.

Skala^r has been developing the concept of Hardware and Software Complexes for eight years, which combine high-performance network components, advanced server platforms and maximum storage speed in one Machine. This allows you to get the highest reliability and performance, and also guarantees the mutual integration of all components of the complex. The new approach to infrastructure is based on large-block design of infrastructure using PAC to support various types of loads.

Disaster tolerance is realized by installing PAC in different data centers and organizing specialized configurations that provide the ability to replicate data and mechanisms for switching to a backup data center in case of emergencies.

In this architecture, business systems use as a foundation a set of PAC with a set of infrastructure services required by the application. Thus, we can say that PAC is the only solution to replace the usual imported infrastructure products using a new approach.

Some customers are wondering if it is possible to create a PAC yourself and how does an independent project differ from ready-made solutions?

The illustration below reflects the benefits of using industrial PACs relative to stand-alone projects.

The modular architecture of Skala^r Machines allows you to assemble a solution with exclusive functionality based on the existing PAC and ready-made business applications that provide the necessary functions. In fact, the customer receives a complete platform that performs a certain functionality. The hardware and software complex becomes a "solution out of the box" for the customer.

PAC Skala^r is a transparent solution with an understandable architecture, adapted and modified for the specifics of the organization. For example, it is possible to finalize data transfer protocols if necessary for the customer, and such a need is confirmed as part of bench tests. According to the results of the tests, the manufacturer can decide on the corresponding changes in the product in conjunction with technological partners, - notes Alexey Zakharov, product marketing manager at Skala^r.

The company Skala^r develops 4 key product areas:

• Skala^r MW virtualization machines for building dynamic converged and hyperconverged infrastructure;
• Database machines Skala^r MBD.P for online transaction processing;
• Big data machines Skala^r MBD.8 for building big data processing and distributed computing complexes.
• Data storage machines Skala^r MHD.O for organizing data storage based on the S3 protocol;
  A separate product area is the Skala^r software platform, built on the principle of "Digital Twin." The built-in API is used to interact with external management systems and services. For example, for cloud service providers, reduce operating costs by up to 50% by automating management procedures; multiples the number of incidents by using automated procedures and a monitoring system; provides alerts to administrators.
• Skala^r Genome - significantly simplifies operation procedures due to automation of administration procedures, reduces the risk of operator errors, allows you to quickly carry out complex processes for restoring Skala^r Machine nodes;
• Skala^r Spectrum - is used in Database Machines Skala^r MBD, allows you to quickly perform comprehensive configuration of the database cluster and monitor its main components;
• Skala^r Vision - monitoring system, used in all Skala^r Machines, provides collection of performance parameters from all components of the complex. It does not affect the overall performance of the system, allows you to notify administrators and send monitoring information to external customer systems.

The modular Skala^r platform provides the widest range of infrastructure products on the Russian market. The company's technology stack allows you to get unique performance parameters and has wide possibilities of refinement to the needs of customers. The modular approach provides a simple process to scale the infrastructure during the operational phase.

The real customers of PACS today are not the IT departments of companies, but the divisions responsible for the development of business applications, "notes Dmitry Butmalai, Director of the Rubytech Product Promotion and Development Department. - For this reason, not only the technical characteristics (number of cores, memory, number and performance of disks) become critical when choosing a PAC, but also the functional ones: the number of transactions per second (TPS), the size of the DBMS, the time for creating a full backup on a separate media.

The modularity of the approach also applies to the hardware. ATB Electronics has several lines of equipment:

• computing platforms (industrial computers and processor modules),
• equipment for APCS (controllers),
• equipment for industrial Internet of Things (base stations, modems, sensors, communication modules, meters).

All products from these lines at different levels can be part of a single system. Moreover, the company has developed several modules in the standard form factors m.2 and mPCIe, which complement the functionality of the equipment and increase its variability.

Thanks to this approach to development, as Roman Dementiev says, the company positions itself as an OEM manufacturer of flexibly customizable equipment based on a "designer" consisting of certain modules. For example, for the industrial Internet of Things, an extensive infrastructure of products for various purposes is used: sensors, modems, LPWAN base stations.

An example of a solution for IoT is the ATB Electronics equipment at controlled telemechanics stations (TM CP). They are installed on gas pipelines and monitor gas pipeline crossings through natural and artificial obstacles. In densely populated regions, TM CPs ensure the safety of gas pipelines.

Here, the gas analyzer detects gas leaks, and the incident signal is transmitted using the OEM ATB modem according to the LoRa standard for a distance of up to 15 km.

In RC of TM, both the ATB OEM case modems - ATB-LW-M, and packageless models in the form of IoT-SOM of modules - ATB-LW-SOM-M30, by ATB-LW-SoM-M60, ATB-NB-SoM-M60, ATB-GSM-SoM-M60 can be installed. The ATB-LW-BS base station can be used as a point for collecting telemechanics from multiple transitions, and the ATB-ATOM minicomputer can be used in a station for collecting and processing information from many ATB-LW-BSs.

Another illustrative implementation of the modular structure IIoT is the ATB Electronics base station, available in 18 embodiments. This variation makes it possible to select the station-server communication interfaces, the global positioning system variant (supported,, GLONASS), GPS Beidou the device variant (with internal antennas or with antennas connected to the N-type connector) and the power connection.

We know how to create devices of various complexity for different areas of industry, - says Roman Dementiev.

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