EPICS for Building a SCADA System for Energy Grids; Interface to NI VeriStand

[Markus Huber via Tech-talk <tech-talk at aps.anl.gov>]

Dear EPICS Community,

I am quite new to EPICS and have some general questions.

I am looking for an open-source framework that enables me to develop a
SCADA system for an experimental sector-coupled microgrid at a research
lab our univerity.
After watching some videos and presentations about EPICS and its support
modules, i think EPICS might be the right tool for that. Now i wonder if
you think so, too.

In the beginning our system consists of three main parts:

1. A VeriStand application that bundles all signals from/to the field
controllers.
2. A software interface that enables communication between VeriStand (in
particular: VeriStand's .NET API) and our intended SCADA system.
3. Our SCADA system, which should provide an HMI, historian database,
alarm handling, and so on.

Later, it should be possible to connect other devices to the SCADA
system without the detour via the VeriStand application (1. and 2.).
In the beginning, all three components will run on the same host machine.

Do you think EPICS is suitable to develop such a SCADA system (3.)?
* If yes, can you recommend any support modules to implement an
interface between (2.) and (3.)? Do you think Asyn and StreamDevice are
suitable, or is there a simpler way?
* If no, can you recommend any other, well-documented, modern, and
open-source frameworks to develop a SCADA system?

Thank you in advance and kind regards
Markus Huber
MSc Student (Computer Science) at TU Munich