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Siemens to launch fail-safe virtual PLC

Siemens introduces the SIMATIC S7-1500V, a fully virtual PLC based on the proven SIMATIC S7-1500 platform, offering familiar functionalities while enabling digitalization in automation. The fail-safe version, SIMATIC S7-1500V F, allows for fault-tolerant applications in a virtual environment, ensuring high levels of cybersecurity and system integrity.

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SIMATIC S7-1500V – familiar functionalities, completely virtual.

February 2025 – The name already gives it away: SIMATIC S7-1500V is an entirely virtual PLC. It is based on the functions and operation of the SIMATIC S7-1500 PLC and independent of its hardware. The virtual PLC can be downloaded as an Edge app and integrated directly into the IT environment. This way, untapped potential offered by digitalization can now be used.

Fail-safe functionalities are essential in automation. To meet these requirements in a virtual environment, Siemens has introduced the Simatic S7-1500V F, a fail-safe version of the virtual PLC (vPLC). This enables the execution of fail-safe applications on a vPLC in an industrial edge environment. This allows for the migration of fault-tolerant applications into the virtual world, contributing to the protection of machine operators without the need for dedicated hardware.

Cybersecurity is another important aspect: the fail-safe vPLC ensures system integrity through high-security levels and standard security for authentication and access control.

Protecting people and machines is always the most important thing in production, which is one of the reasons why there is a great need for fail-safe functionalities in automation. However, there have been no virtual solutions in this area. With the fail-safe variant of the virtual PLC, the proven, integrated mechanisms for functional safety are implemented in an Industrial Edge environment. This enables you as a user to migrate even safety-sensitive applications to a virtual automation environment.

The fail-safe variant of the virtual controller is already in a productive environment at selected pilot customers and is extremely easy to use. The well-known challenge of finding solutions for safety applications that work without the use of special hardware is easily solved by our functional safety mechanisms, as these do not require any special hardware on the host system side.

However, increasing hardware independence and the growth in virtualisation are placing even greater demands on cybersecurity. The risk of security gaps is constantly increasing, as production systems are becoming ever more closely interconnected. Compliance with and fulfillment of the applicable standards and norms is therefore essential when it comes to protecting automation solutions against cyberattacks.

Cybersecurity for a more resilient automation industry is based on system integrity as part of the defense-in-depth principle, which is made up of two components:

·Ensuring system integrity through high security levels, and

·Security as the standard for authentication and access protection.

https://blog.siemens.com/2024/12/safety-first-now-also-in-the-virtual-environment/