Technical articles
This page contains a list of technical articles published on the Reliance website.
December 12, 2019What's new in Reliance 4.9.0
Reliance 4.9.0, which has just been released, is this year's second official version of the system. Once again, it includes many new features and enhancements. The major ones are summarized in this article.
August 26, 2019How to display tag values in custom reports of type FastReport
The Reliance SCADA/HMI system's custom reports are intended to create documents that can be displayed, printed, or saved to a file. In this article, you will learn how to use custom reports in a visualization project.
January 28, 2019Integration of IP cameras and the Digifort IP surveillance system into Reliance SCADA
The Reliance SCADA system has native support for Axis, Vivotek, and Pelco IP cameras. If you cannot use these cameras, we recommend that you integrate your camera through the Digifort IP surveillance system. For instructions on how to integrate an IP camera into Reliance SCADA, refer to this article.
January 4, 2019What's new in Reliance 4.8.1
After about six months, another official version of the Reliance SCADA/HMI system, version 4.8.1, has been released with many new features and enhancements. The major ones are summarized in this article.
December 12, 2018Reliance Web Client Launcher (Web Client and Java 11)
In reaction to Oracle's announcement that version releases and support policies are undergoing significant changes, a new launcher – Reliance Web Client Launcher – is part of the new version of Reliance SCADA, version 4.8.1. This launcher acts as a substitute for Java Web Start.
November 14, 2018Consolidating repeated alarm occurrences into one instance
Beginning with version 4.8.1, Reliance allows consolidating repeated alarm/event occurrences into a single instance. For detailed information, read this technical article.
June 12, 2018What's new in Reliance 4.8.0
After 15 months, a new version is out with many new features and enhancements. As a result of the massive changes, we decided to release it as 4.8.0 instead of the planned version number 4.7.4. The major changes are summarized in this article.
February 28, 2018Native support for Oracle in Reliance SCADA
Beginning with version 4.8.0, native support for the Oracle database management system is part of the Reliance SCADA/HMI system. This support is based on the ODBC standard.
March 8, 2017What's new in Reliance 4.7.3
The previous official version of the Reliance SCADA/HMI system was released in May 2016. Now, after almost a year, Reliance 4.7.3 is out with many new features, enhancements, and optimizations that will be appreciated by those who operate large-scale projects and by countless others.
January 6, 2017How to switch between languages in a multilanguage project
The Reliance SCADA/HMI system has support for multilanguage projects. This technical article shows you how to switch between languages in such projects.
November 8, 2016State Manager – displaying numeric-type tags' values as text
A new manager – State Manager – has been added to the Reliance SCADA system. Among other things, it helps address the issue of displaying numeric-type tags' values as text. For detailed information, read this article.
August 22, 2016Reliance Mobile Client will no longer be developed
Beginning with version 4.7.3, Mobile Client will no longer be part of the Reliance system. This article explains the reasons for our decision.
August 3, 2016Dynamic links to objects
In Reliance, it is now possible to define dynamic links to objects. For detailed information, read this article.
July 19, 2016Data specific to the thin clients
This article focuses on the change in data sharing for the thin clients. Now, it may happen that the clients must not share auxiliary (internal) tags' values.
May 18, 2016What's new in Reliance 4.7.2
The previous official version of the Reliance SCADA/HMI system (version 4.7.1) was released on May 20, 2015. After almost a year, Reliance 4.7.2 is out with some new features and enhancements. The major changes are summarized below.
March 21, 2016Advice on how to run the Reliance SCADA system on an SSD
Using SSD hard drives has recently become very popular not only in industrial automation. In this article, you will find hints for running the Reliance SCADA system on an SSD.
February 22, 2016Reliance SCADA has support for the Maatrix emergency communication service
Beginning with version 4.7.2, the Reliance SCADA system has support for connecting to the Maatrix emergency communication service for the purpose of notifying users of alarms/events.
November 2, 2015Reliance SCADA and a direct driver for Siemens SIMATIC S7 PLCs
Check out the third technical article taken from a review by Mr. Jaroslav Blazek. It describes how to connect a Siemens SIMATIC S7 PLC to the Reliance SCADA/HMI system.
October 14, 2015Reliance Web Client certificate validity
Beginning with version 4.6.1, the Web client's program files are signed with a digital certificate from a trusted certificate authority (Thawte). As of October 22, 2015, the certificate becomes invalid and a problem with running the Web client may occur at the end user site. The problem may appear in projects running in version 4.6.1 or later up to 4.7.2 Pre-release, Rev. 26420. The article describes three ways of solving or avoiding the problem.
August 19, 2015VBScript tip No. 4: Converting alarm/event text to speech
In this article, you will find out how to use the Reliance SCADA system to convert alarm text to speech and play the speech to the user.
June 5, 2015How to connect Arduino to Reliance SCADA
This technical article describes how to connect an Arduino microcontroller to the Reliance SCADA/HMI system. A short video is available at the bottom of the article.
May 25, 2015Lots of improvements in Reliance 4.7
The previous official version of the Reliance SCADA/HMI system (version 4.6.3) was released on September 1, 2014. Reliance 4.7.1 brings a large number of new features and improvements. The major changes are summarized in this article.
December 16, 2014Reliance SCADA/HMI and Siemens LOGO!
Check out another technical article taken from a review by Mr. Jaroslav Blazek. It describes how to connect a Siemens LOGO! PLC to the Reliance SCADA/HMI system.
December 3, 2014VBScript tip No. 3: Web service client
Check out the third article on how to work with VBScript in the Reliance SCADA/HMI system. This time, we talk about one of the methods of exchanging data with third-party applications – a Web service.
November 26, 2014VBScript tip No. 2: Working with an object list
We bring you the second tip for working with VBScript in the Reliance SCADA/HMI system. The simple examples in the article show how to work with an object list.
November 12, 2014VBScript tip No. 1: Changing the locale settings
We bring you the first tip for working with VBScript in the Reliance SCADA/HMI system, which focuses on changing the locale settings.
September 2, 2014Native support for PostgreSQL in the Reliance 4 SCADA/HMI system
Beginning with version 4.6.3, support for logging historical data and alarms/events to the PostgreSQL object-relational database management system is part of the Reliance SCADA/HMI system. In this technical article, you will learn how to connect the Reliance SCADA/HMI system to a PostgreSQL database.
July 25, 2014New text message events and GSM signal quality detection
The Reliance SCADA system allows sending and receiving text messages via a GSM modem. Sending text messages can be done either programmatically or automatically when a certain event occurs. Messages are sent asynchronously. This means that requests for sending the messages are passed to SMS Driver.
April 3, 2014Native support for MySQL and MariaDB in the Reliance 4 SCADA/HMI system
Beginning with version 4.6.2, support for logging historical data and alarms/events to the MySQL and MariaDB relational database management systems with no need for writing scripts is part of the Reliance SCADA/HMI system. In this article, you will learn how to connect the Reliance SCADA system to these databases.
January 2, 2014Date, Time, TimeSpan: new tag data types in the Reliance SCADA/HMI system
Up to version 4.6.0, only the DateTime and Array of DateTime data types had been available in the Reliance system for working with dates and times. The Reliance SCADA/HMI system, version 4.6.1, extends its list of data types to include data types for working with dates and times. Additionally, the TimeSpan (amount of time) data type has been added.
November 25, 2013Support for multi-monitor applications in the Reliance SCADA/HMI system
The Reliance system allows its users to create multi-monitor applications. For each computer defined via the Reliance Design development environment's Project Structure Manager, you can activate support for multiple monitors and configure other properties on the Screen page.
October 29, 2013Java 7 security prompts when running Reliance Web Client
To increase the security of the Java Runtime Environment, a security prompt displays when running an application that is not signed with a certificate or the publisher of the certificate has failed to be verified.
October 14, 2013Project diagnostics can help you find issues and inconsistencies in a visualization project
Visualization project diagnostics is a tool intended for checking a visualization project and detecting issues that could hardly be found by the user during normal work. The Project Diagnostics Wizard is built in the Reliance Design development environment (both versions, Desktop and Enterprise) in the form of an intuitive wizard. If an issue has been found, the Diagnostics Results window is displayed listing the detected issues and inconsistencies in the visualization project.
October 2, 2013Releasing of the Reliance SCADA/HMI system's versions
To name its versions, the Reliance system uses a sequence of numbers separated by periods: major.minor.release (e.g., Reliance 4.6.0). For a version's unique identification, also the revision number is sometimes used, i.e., major.minor.release.revision (e.g., Reliance 4.6.0.19532). The revision can also be shown separately, e.g., Reliance 4.6.0, Revision 19532.
August 22, 2013Reliance 4 data server redundancy
Beginning with version 4.6.0, data server redundancy is part of the Reliance 4 system. It is also called redundancy of type server–server. The aim of this feature is to allow the project's most important computers to operate in hot standby mode.
August 16, 2013How to connect Reliance SCADA to a Siemens SIMATIC S7 PLC
We bring you the first technical article taken from a review by Mr. Jaroslav Blazek published at www.blaja.cz. He tested the connection of a Siemens SIMATIC S7 PLC to the Reliance system. In the article, the interconnection is shown on a sample project.
July 2, 2013Support for SVG in the Reliance SCADA/HMI system
In the Reliance system, vector graphics in the SVG format have been supported since Version 4.6.0. This article provides detailed information about the SVG format, benefits of its use, and its implementation in the Reliance SCADA/HMI system.
June 10, 2013Important changes in Reliance 4.6.0
Reliance 4.6.0 brings several important new features and enhancements that you can read in this article. More information can be found in Reliance's manual and help system.
November 6, 2012Reliance is compatible with Windows 8
The Reliance system has been thoroughly tested on the recently released Microsoft Windows 8. The test results indicate no compatibility issues.
August 28, 2012Lots of improvements in Reliance 4.5
Reliance, version 4.5 and higher, will be compiled using a new version of the Delphi development environment (Delphi IDE). Thanks to this, users can expect increased performance and security and other improvements.
August 28, 2012Reliance 4 Smart Client – Visualization on mobile devices (iPhone, iPad, Android)
Reliance 4 Smart Client is a thin client of the Reliance SCADA/HMI system intended for making visualization applications available to the user via Web pages. It is designed for use with touchscreen smartphones and tablets, which are very popular among users these days and their popularity is rapidly increasing.
December 15, 2011Reliance's data servers – Server Usage Statistics
One of Reliance's data servers' (Reliance Server and Reliance Control Server) functions is to perform usage statistics of the built-in Web server. The statistics are displayed as a Web page in the Server Administration section. It is designed to display the amount of requests per second processed by the data server and the connected client count over the past hour, 24 hours, and 4 weeks.
December 15, 2011Reliance's data servers – Secure connection support
Reliance's data servers (Reliance Server and Reliance Control Server) allow you to make a secure connection with a client (SSL encryption – Secure Sockets Layer). So far, the data servers' Web pages could only be run via the HTTP protocol providing security using the basic access authentication. Now, a secure connection can be used for these purposes – the HTTPS protocol.
July 25, 2011WideString and UTF8String tag data types
The Reliance system supports the WideString and UTF8String tag data types. They are string tags which contain characters of the Unicode character set. The only difference between them is how they are stored in memory. WideString is stored in the UCS-2 encoding (each character represented by two bytes), whereas UTF8String in the UTF-8 encoding.
June 1, 2011String Manager – Translating project-defined strings using Google Translate
The String Manager, which is part of the Reliance Design development environment, facilitates the translation of text strings used in a visualization project by using Google's free online translation service, Google Translate.
June 1, 2011Web Client – Improved IP camera support
The Web client can now display the current image from an IP camera directly in a visualization window. Previously, it only displayed the IP camera symbol that functioned as a link to the camera's Web server.
June 1, 2011Web Client – Data Tree component
Now, Reliance 4 Web Client also supports the Data Tree component. This component displays data in a tree-like structure previously configured through Reliance Design.
June 1, 2011Controlling serial link parameters via NVT
NVT (Network Virtual Terminal) is defined as a part of the Telnet protocol. It contains a set of commands that can also be used to transmit commands and settings to a remote device. From the Telnet protocol functions defined in the RFC 2217 standard, Reliance 4 only uses the functions related to setting the serial interface parameters.
June 1, 2011M-Bus Communication Driver
M-Bus Communication Driver is now part of the Reliance 4 native communication driver list. This driver is designed for devices that communicate via the M-Bus (Meter Bus) protocol.
June 1, 2011Text replacement of object properties
In the development environment, this feature enables you to modify the properties of objects (windows, components, etc.) via text replacement.
June 1, 2011License Service
In Reliance 4, you can now verify the validity of licenses via the so-called License Service. This service provides access to license keys (both hardware and software keys) that are installed on the computer.
June 1, 2011Intelligent features for working with the source code of scripts
In the script editor, there are commands designed to facilitate editing source code. The commands operate on the selected block of source code and enable the users to easily insert the name of a project-defined object (e.g., device and tag), filename, color in VBScript format, etc.
June 1, 2011Reliance OPC Server
Reliance OPC Server is one of Reliance 4's modules. It allows for accessing visualization project tags through a standard OPC interface. As a result, it is possible to transfer data from a running Reliance 4 project to information systems used by the customer.
June 1, 2011Generic Driver
Generic Driver is a communication driver available with Reliance 4. It is designed for data exchange (through a serial port or Ethernet) between Reliance and devices for which a native driver or an OPC/DDE server is not available.
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