Questions
The ones we actually get asked.
Do we need an antenna, or is the box enough?
Depends how many of the three paths you want. On its own it can collect over your network with no extra equipment. For the paths that survive an outage you need either an antenna or a receiver on site.
We are moving to the cloud. Why would we want a box at the dam?
Because the dam has to keep operating when the link to the cloud does not. HydroDCS receives the satellite signal directly and keeps the record at the dam, so the control room keeps its current values and alarms through any outage. It complements the cloud rather than competing with it - the cloud stays the enterprise record, and nothing is missing from it when the link returns.
Who uses it today?
It has been in daily operation at the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers Portland District since 2018, at the dams themselves, and runs in the New England District's reservoir control center.
What happens during a cyber incident?
If the network is taken down or isolated, HydroDCS keeps collecting from the satellite and keeps serving current values and alarms at the dam, so operations carry on. Afterwards, its record is an independent copy you can compare restored backups against before you trust them.
What if our gauges don't report by satellite?
It collects from cellular gauges too, and can be set up for other collection systems where there is no satellite link. Tell us what you have and we'll tell you how it fits.
Is it only for river gauges?
No. It stores and charts any time series - river, reservoir and weather alike - and serves it through an API. It can also receive live satellite weather imagery directly, with no internet connection. Anyone who runs a dam can use it, whoever owns it.
Does it need internet access?
No. With a local path it collects, stores and serves its screens with no route off your network at all.
Can we run it in the cloud or on our own servers instead?
Yes, as a central instance - that's how the long history is usually kept, and where configuration is managed for every unit. What a virtual machine can't have is the two local paths, so if surviving an outage is the point, you want a box at the dam.
Who owns the data?
You do. The satellite data is public by agreement, we operate none of your gauges, and nothing collected by your appliance reaches us.
What if you stop supporting it?
Fair question for a small company, and the answer is in how it is built rather than a promise. The appliance does not phone home or need us to be reachable - it keeps collecting on its own. And everything it holds is in a standard format you can export whenever you like. You would lose our support and updates, not your data.
How many gauges can one box handle?
It depends on how often they report and what you calculate from them. Send us your list and we'll tell you what we'd ship, rather than quote a number that turns out to be wrong for you.