A SCADA System (supervisory control and data acquisition) is most often referred to as ICS (industrial control systems) which are used to process water treatment, wastewater treatment, gas pipelines, wind farms, and those of the such. SCADA Systems are also used to control airports, space stations, and ships which are most often referred to as facility based processes. SCADA Systems are also used to control other types of processes such as production, manufacturing, refining, and power generation, and these processes are most often referred to as industrial processes. A SCADA System typically refers to a system that runs these processes in present time, meaning that it does not control the actual process in present time. SCADA Systems mostly entail the implementation of the distribution of databases referred to as tag databases, which contain data elements known as tags or points. Points can be either soft or hard, and they are also a single input or output value controlled by the system. A hard point is demonstrated as the output or input of a system, and a soft point is demonstrated as a result of logic operations that are put towards other points. SCADA systems also use protocols that have been specifically designed to be compact and send information to the master station, however it only does this when the remote terminal unit (RTU) when it is polled by the master station. The architecture of a SCADA system typically consists of PLCs (programmable logic controllers) as well as RTUs (remote terminal units). The programmable logic controllers and remote terminal units communicate with different things such as factory machines, HMIs, sensors, as well as end devices and then send information from them to computers that obtain SCADA system software. SCADA systems have evolved over time and modern day SCADA systems allow for present time data from the plant to be accessible at any time anywhere in the world. This present time access to data allows for governments, businesses, as well as individuals to be able to make informed decisions on how to improve their processes.

References
What is SCADA? (n.d.). Retrieved November 08, 2020, from https://www.inductiveautomation.com/resources/article/what-is-scada
SCADA Systems. (n.d.). Retrieved November 08, 2020, from http://www.scadasystems.net/