A system for testing a distributed control system of an industrial plant, the distributed control system having at least two industrial control devices, each industrial control device configured to control operation of a respective actuating part of the industrial plant during a production process of the industrial plant, and at least one data communication device configured to connect each of the at least two industrial control devices with at least a corresponding actuator of the industrial plant,
- the system comprising:
- at least one engineering computer having an engineering data storage unit for storing engineering data of at least one part of the distributed control system, and at least one human machine interface for manipulating the engineering data;
- and
- at least one remote data processing server connected to the at least one engineering computer via a remote data connection,
- wherein the engineering data comprises, a number, a type, and communication configuration information for each of the at least two industrial control devices and the at least one data communication device of the at least one part of the distributed control system, and
- wherein the at least one remote data processing server installed outside of the industrial plant comprises:
- for each possible type of the at least two industrial control devices and of the at least one data communication device, a separate virtual machine template with an installed soft emulator adapted to the corresponding type, the virtual machine templates being useable to create separate emulating virtual machines for each of the at least two industrial control devices and the at least one data communication device which operate using separate computer resources and execute the respective installed soft emulators so as to emulate software of the at least two industrial control devices and of the at least one data communication device which is executed in the distributed control system on the respective emulating virtual machines, and
- an orchestration virtual machine, the orchestration virtual machine configured to:
- retrieve a copy of the engineering data via the remote data connection at pre-defined time intervals or whenever the engineering data is amended,
- store the copy of the engineering data in at least one remote data storage unit,
- add or remove ones of the emulating virtual machines to or from the at least one remote data processing server by creating or deleting copies of the virtual machine templates so that the number of the resulting emulating virtual machines and the types of their corresponding soft emulators match the number and types contained in the copy of the engineering data,
- configure the soft emulators in the resulting emulating virtual machines according to the communication configuration information contained in the copy of the engineering data,
- ensure that the emulating virtual machines are running,
- further configure the soft emulators in the resulting emulating virtual machines by downloading to them from the engineering data storage unit device at least one of configuration data and executable program code of the corresponding industrial control device or data communication device of the at least one part of the distributed control system, at least if their engineering data have been amended, and
- communicate with the resulting emulating virtual machines and the at least one or a further human machine interface in order to run the soft emulators of the resulting emulating virtual machines according to simulation commands entered via the at least one or the further human machine interface.