The Netcon 500 is a cybersecure and versatile standards-based remote terminal unit and substation gateway. Hardware modularity and a rich set of software features make the Netcon 500 a very flexible solution, protecting your investments long into the future and lowering the total cost of ownership.

Modular, scalable and robust hardware with a long life cycle

Built into a rack containing slots for 3–14 removable card modules, the Netcon 500 system has two functional main parts:

• The GW502, the master card and main processing unit that handles the communications (including protocol conversion) and implements cyber security. It also has provisions for redundancy (see below).
• The RTU, which consists of the required number of digital input (DI64), digital output (DO32), analog input (AI16) or combined input/output (IO64) cards providing the conventional process interfaces for individually wired IO.

A touch screen–based local HMI panel, the Netcon 500 OP, is also available and where a more fully featured substation SCADA is needed, the Netcon 3000 Compact can be used.

Netcon 500 hardware is designed for trouble-free operation over a long lifetime in substation environments where electric and magnetic interference are high. The modular structure also makes its maintenance, as well as modifications and upgrades, easy and cost-effective.

Secure and versatile communications

The GW502 master card runs the reliable, secure and resilient Linux operating system as a platform for the Netcon NFE communication software. It has a modern Linux kernel with recent security related libraries and long-time support. It has the following security features:

• Secure boot and signed patches: signature checked before boot/update
• Built-in firewall
• Tools against DDoS (distributed denial of service)
• Security event logging by syslog by default
• Support for multiple VPN tunnels using OpenVPN or IPSec
• Authentication
• IEC 60870-5-104/s support with security according to IEC 62351-3
• 256-bit AES encryption
• Protection against Remote access toolkit attacks

Flexibility and adaptability

The Netcon NFE communication software offers a selection of several dozen master and slave protocols, both standard and proprietary. Almost any substation devices can therefore be made to communicate with almost any SCADA system(s).

For connections with IEDs at the substation, the Netcon 500 supports not only legacy serial devices, but also a manufacturer-independent manner IEC 61850 client.

For control-centre communication, conversions to SCADA slave protocols such as IEC-104, IEC-101 and DNP3 are available.

Reliable and time-accurate process information

The accuracy and resolution of the time stamps of process events are crucial for disturbance analysis. The Netcon 500 IO offers a time resolution of 1 millisecond, and the use of GPS for time synchronisation makes the accuracy equally good.

The system availability is easily enhanced through various kinds of redundancy. One Netcon GW502 card may be simultaneously connected to as many as four different SCADA systems via independent communication links. A single Netcon 500 system may contain two GW502 cards, each with its own NFE instance; if one fails or loses communication, the other will automatically take over.