Data Sheet for Product

Technical Specification Sheet
Document No. 149-986
January 10, 2014
Siemens Industry, Inc. Page 1 of 2
Soft Controller
Description
The Soft Controller is an integral part of the
APOGEE® Automation System. It is a user-
programmable Building Level Network (BLN) device
that runs in the background on an Insight®
workstation.
A Soft Controller is similar in concept to the SoftPLC
often used in process controls. It is essentially a
virtual field panel with many capabilities normally
associated with physical field panels but without any
physical panel or wiring.
The Soft Controller can be used in place of physical
field panels for applications that require field panel
processing capabilities without the need for physical
I/O.
Instead of requiring field panel hardware, a Soft
Controller relies upon field panel firmware running on
an Insight workstation. The controller is referred to
as soft to indicate that software controls it, and that
no hardware (other than the Insight workstation) is
required to use it.
When Soft Controller software is installed, field panel
firmware, implemented as a Windows service, is
used to support soft controllers with many of the
same features as physical panels. The service runs
in the background on the Insight workstation where
any Soft Controller is defined. To Insight, a Soft
Controller behaves like a physical field panel
communicating over Ethernet, and is graphically
represented as another field panel in the System
Profile application.
Soft Controller and MBCs on an Ethernet BLN at Insight
Because Soft Controllers are handled as a Windows
service, Soft Controllers continue to run even when
no user is logged on to the Insight workstation or to
the operating system. However, when the
workstation is shut down, the Soft Controller service
is also shut down and is treated as a panel failure
and coldstart. Therefore, it is very important to plan
accordingly to minimize the impact of Soft Controller
coldstarts.