Towards generic SCADA simulators : A survey of existing multi-purpose co-simulation platforms , best practices and use-cases

SCADA (Supervisory Control and Data Acquisition) systems monitor industrial and critical infrastructures, so assessment of their performance and security is important. They are complex systems deployed over wide areas, hence their modeling and simulation is far from trivial. In fact, often it necessitates the co-simulation of the processes supervised, as well as the network communications between SCADA components. Selecting the appropriate modeling and simulation tools is critical, because the combination of domain specific simulators with network simulators while considering the crucial aspect of time synchronization, enables the deployment of dependable simulation environments. This paper describes the architecture of SCADA networks, analyzes the characteristics of the most common used network simulators and surveys existing simulator implementations in multiple SCADA application domains. As SCADA systems have evolved towards standardization, there are great opportunities for simulation tools that will allow us to enhance and fine-tune their performance. The key objective of this paper is to review the state of the art of performance simulation of SCADA simulation systems. Keywords—SCADA system architecture, SCADA networks, SCADA security, co-simulation environments, network simulators