PNPSCADA Hosting and Licensing

PNPSCADA Hosting and Licensing include all available sub-systems, features and drivers, including free upgrades and unlimited Manager licenses, and Operating and Database Software licenses (conditions apply).
The cost is per channel. What does that mean? Here is a short conversion table to explain:

One Single Phase Electricity Meter (kWh) (include STS token sending functionality where available)
1 Channel
One Single Phase Meter, incl. real time data
2 Channels
One Water Meter
1 Channel
One typical Maximum Demand Meter (only forward power - kWh, and lagging reactive energy: kvarh - Q1)
2 Channels
One typical Maximum Demand Meter, incl. real time data
3 Channels
One Four Quadrant Meter (forward & reverse power, plus all four reactive energy quadrants - Q1-Q4)
4 Channels
One Breaker device that is remotely switchable
1 Channel
One typical Maximum Demand Meter (only forward power - kWh, and lagging reactive energy: kvarh - Q1),
with Time of Use Billing Registers
3 Channels
One typical Maximum Demand Meter (only forward power - kWh, and lagging reactive energy: kvarh - Q1),
with Instrumentation Profile
3 Channels

Channels include:
  1. Forward Active Energy (P1)
  2. Reverse Active Energy (P2)
  3. Reactive Energy - Import Lagging (Q1)
  4. Reactive Energy - Export Leading (Q2)
  5. Reactive Energy - Export Lagging (Q3)
  6. Reactive Energy - Import Leading (Q4)
  7. RMS kVA (S) (this is not needed for normal kVA, normal kVA is implied when P1 and Q1 is active)
  8. Realtime
  9. Digital Output (Breaker Switching)
  10. Rate Registers (Like TOU registers from meter, rather than calculated from profile)
  11. Instrumentation Profile (Like Voltages and Currents)
Notes:

  • Full 4 Quadrant Metering only uses 4 channels, so P1,P2,Q1,Q2,Q3 and Q4 counts as only 4 channels.
  • Manually capturing Profile and Totals still count towards the respective channels.
Here is a breakdown of the costs (excl. VAT), taking into account Bulk Discounts. Option 1 is the Ownership option, and Option 3 is the Hosting option:
ChannelsEvergreen optionYearly OptionSix-monthly OptionMonthly Option
Cost per Channel (ZAR)Cost per Channel
(ZAR)
Cost per Channel
(ZAR)
Cost per Channel
(ZAR)
4 - 9109243222840
10 - 2493621611420
25 - 49702194.4102.618
50 - 99546172.891.216
100 - 199429151.279.814
200 - 499390140.474.113
500 - 999312129.668.412
1000 - 199923497.251.39
2000 - 299915686.445.68
3000 - 399914375.639.97
4000 - 499913564.834.26
5000 - 999911459.431.355.5
10000 - 19999805428.55
20000 - 499995643.222.84
50000 - 999993932.417.13
100000 - 499999  2921.611.42
5000002216.28.551.5
unlimitednegotiable



UPDATES:

  • Evergreen (ownership option): Upfront purchase of software license.
  • Yearly / 6-Monthly / Monthly (software rental option): No upfront payment. A periodic payment per channel is required. The client does not own the software.

Important Notes:


  • Evergreen is only available if the customer runs the software on his own server.
  • Yearly / 6-Monthly / Monthly are available both when the customer runs the software on his own server, or hosted on our infrastructure on the Internet.
  • When running the software on his own server, we recommend that the software be run on a PNPSCADA Server.
  • Our system can easily be configured by the user. Free on-line Training material is available. Formal Training and a formal qualification is available to resellers and other customers. Configuration and Engineering by us are generally not needed, but can be provided at a nominal fee.
  • One channel is equivalent to a single phase meter, water meter or a contactor. Base cost includes Profile, Totals, Phasor and Events, and functionality to send an STS token to the meter, where available. Real Time costs an extra channel per meter, as does instrumentation profile. Maximum Demand meters are 2 channels each, and four quadrant meters are 4 channels each. Maximum Demand meters that take both lagging and leading reactive energy into account are 3 channels each.

Resellers are very important to us.

Bulk Discounts are calculated on the total number of 'current' channels the client or Reseller has bought at the time of purchase, and not on a per-deal basis.
This means that a Reseller with multiple clients will make money even if he charges our rates, since he will receive a greater Bulk Discount than his client would, even if his client comes to us directly. In this way the risk to the Reseller of his client dealing with us directly is greatly mitigated. In fact, the Reseller would be able to offer his clients a cheaper price than us and still make money.
If a Reseller starts with the monthly option and quickly grows his base, he can also quickly pay less for the channels he installed in the beginning.

PNPSCADA AMR Server

We recommend that you run your AMR System on a dedicated Server, since it is a mission critical process that needs to run in the background, 24 hours a day, 7 days a week. It is often critical to read in meters reliably early in the morning on the day when the Bills are going out - when no-one is at work - so you need to ensure that this process is as reliable as possible.
Our answer to that Requirement is the dedicated PNPSCADA AMR Router.
For situations where you want to run the software on your own on-site Server, we recommend that you buy the dedicated hardware from us (please note, that is now not true any more, and outdated, as per 2024-11-16. Unless you are reading more than twenty thousand meters, we prefer that you set up your own hardware with Linux installed, and we install pnpscada remotely), with the software and licenses pre-loaded.
Some reasons why we prefer this option are:
The Server Setup has been tested and verified by us.
The Software has been tested on - and in many cases engineered for - this specific Hardware and Operating System platform.
The Support available on this platform is better than on our Windows platform, since we can enforce uniformity.
More TCP ports are available on this platform.
Software Upgrades are free on this platform.
Any support that is the result of a bug by us is for free. In the case of the AMR Router, that includes the hardware and O/S configuration. In the case where you install PNPSCADA on Windows - on un unknown hardware platform - that is not the case.
The Specs of this box are as follows:
Operating System
Ubuntu Server 22.04
Database
PostgreSQL
MotherboardIntel
Processor
8 Core
Memory
32GB
Hard disk
1T Solid State drive SATA3
1TB HDD
Network1Gb Ethernet port

If you need to run the server on your own virtual server, here are some specs and recommendations:
1. OS: Ubuntu Server 22.04. Do the minimal install that just gets SSH login. We will install all the extra software needed.
2. You will need to give us root login for the server. We will then install Java and the Database. The reason we need root login is because our daily offsite backup script needs root login, as well as the upgrade script requires root login.
3. Memory we suggest 16GB if you are reading less than 6000 meters, 32GB for more.
4. Hard disk: biggest bottleneck is the hard drive. We suggest having the biggest SSD you can find, but at least a 1TB solid state hard drive and a 1TB hard drive for the daily backups.
If you do the partitioning:
  ext3 or ext4 file system
  no swap space
  please make sure you don't use btrfs (BetterFS)
4.1 on 1 HDD:
  mount / on the HDD
4.2 on 1 HDD and 1 SSD
  mount / on the SSD
  mount /root/drive2 on the HDD
4.3 2+ SSD and 1 HDD
  mount / on the RAID0 SSDs
  mount /root/drive2 on the HDD
5. If you need CSD, your server will need some sort of serial port, be that on board, or an external Moxa (CSD has now been discontinued by all networks in Southern Africa - 2024-03-11)

The PNPSCADA Server requires Internet Access to function. 
We recommend that it be installed on a Static Internet IP address.
Although the server will function without being installed on a Static Internet IP, this will disable a lot of the functionality, e.g. automatic software updates, off site backups, Customer Logins via the internet and APN-less connects via GPRS and Etherpads, to name a few.
No PNPSCADA channel Licenses are included in the sale price. Licenses have to be bought separately.