“Well before it went live, we had worked out a clear plan for exactly how we were going to use the new versiondog versioning and data management software from AUVESY,” says Michael Mrugalla, who works in process automation at the Mainz plant. “We also had to think about what backups really meant for us. With all our field devices, control programs, drive systems, programming languages, file formats and software applications, we needed to know precisely what we have to back up in case a breakdown (e.g. a power outage) stops production. Because the whole point of making a backup is to be able to recover data quickly and easily when something goes wrong and continue working as if nothing had happened. But that means more than simply restarting production, it also means we need to be able to pick up where we left off with our ongoing process maintenance and optimisation.” It was particularly important to Nestlé that their backup strategy be built around a sin-gle continually active and universally appli-cable solution. And they wanted it to maintain a centralised backup of all the data necessary for both recovery and further development for all devices and all related projects (i.e. every piece of hardware and software). And the programs actually running on controllers need to correspond precisely with the data on the server. If not, the reason must be easily identifiable and the valid version always available to be reloaded onto the device.

Backing up and monitoring of Industrial control system programs for the Large Hadron Collider (LHC) at CERN near Geneva, the world´s largest particle accelerator, has been entrusted to the data management system versiondog. The European Organization for Nuclear Research uses the system to manage the data of around 500 components, making versiondog one of CERN's standard technologies.

With the flood of data and numerous versions of software in the production environment of a firm, much time and effort is spent by workers searching, guessing or asking questions in order to solve issues.

The latest logistics and automation technologies that help to safeguard work processes in large warehouses with complex, around-the-clock global distribution networks require regular changes and improvements to function optimally. At the same time, these modifications also increase the risk of errors or even production stoppages, which are unfavorable situations.

When complex systems are developed for a customer and commissioned with a particular delivery state, a data management system can make it easier to archive commissioned versions and track subsequent changes made by the customer.