Networked SCADA architecture in SCADA systems - Mini Project: Build & Apply

Networked SCADA Architecture Setup

📖 Scenario: You are working as a junior DevOps engineer for a company that manages industrial control systems. Your task is to set up a simple networked SCADA (Supervisory Control and Data Acquisition) architecture configuration. This will help monitor and control remote devices from a central server.

🎯 Goal: Build a basic SCADA network configuration using dictionaries to represent devices and their network settings. Then, add a configuration variable for the communication protocol. Finally, create a loop to display device connection statuses and print the final network summary.

📋 What You'll Learn

Create a dictionary called scada_devices with three devices and their IP addresses

Add a variable called protocol set to the string "Modbus TCP"

Use a for loop with variables device and ip to iterate over scada_devices.items()

Print the connection status for each device using the protocol

Print the total number of devices connected at the end

💡 Why This Matters

🌍 Real World

SCADA systems are used in industries like manufacturing, energy, and water treatment to monitor and control equipment remotely. Setting up network configurations helps ensure devices communicate properly.

💼 Career

Understanding how to configure and monitor SCADA devices is important for DevOps engineers working in industrial automation and critical infrastructure sectors.

1

Create SCADA devices dictionary

Create a dictionary called scada_devices with these exact entries: 'RTU1': '192.168.1.10', 'RTU2': '192.168.1.11', 'PLC1': '192.168.1.20'

SCADA systems

# Create the scada_devices dictionary with device names and IP addresses
# Your code here

Need a hint?

Use curly braces {} to create a dictionary with keys as device names and values as IP addresses.

2

Add communication protocol configuration

Add a variable called protocol and set it to the string "Modbus TCP"

SCADA systems

scada_devices = {'RTU1': '192.168.1.10', 'RTU2': '192.168.1.11', 'PLC1': '192.168.1.20'}
# Add the protocol variable below
# Your code here

Need a hint?

Assign the string "Modbus TCP" to the variable protocol.

3

Loop through devices to show connection status

Use a for loop with variables device and ip to iterate over scada_devices.items(). Inside the loop, create a string status that says: "Device {device} at {ip} connected via {protocol}"

SCADA systems

scada_devices = {'RTU1': '192.168.1.10', 'RTU2': '192.168.1.11', 'PLC1': '192.168.1.20'}
protocol = "Modbus TCP"
# Loop through scada_devices and create status strings
# Your code here

Need a hint?

Use an f-string to format the status message inside the loop.

4

Print connection statuses and total devices

Inside the for loop, print the status string. After the loop, print "Total devices connected: {count}" where count is the number of devices in scada_devices

SCADA systems

scada_devices = {'RTU1': '192.168.1.10', 'RTU2': '192.168.1.11', 'PLC1': '192.168.1.20'}
protocol = "Modbus TCP"
for device, ip in scada_devices.items():
    status = f"Device {device} at {ip} connected via {protocol}"
    # Print the status here
# After the loop, print the total number of devices
# Your code here

Need a hint?

Use print(status) inside the loop and print(f"Total devices connected: {count}") after the loop.