Distributed Control System with Seamless Software Update

A distributed control system (DCS) for controlling the execution of at least one industrial process in an industrial plant, comprising:

• one or more low-level controllers configured to interact with field devices that are in a direct physical relationship with the industrial process;
• at least one high-level controller configured to:
• provide instructions for executing the industrial process, and/or set-point values at which at least one quantity of interest of the process and/or of the plant is to be kept, to the one or more low-level controllers;
• and/or
• read in sensor data of any type from sensor field devices, and/or any values of quantities of interest reported by the one or more low-level controllers;
• at least one human-machine interface (HMI) device configured to:
• receive, from a user, user input and transmit the user input and/or a work product derived from it, to the at least one high-level controller;
• and
• receive, from the at least one high-level controller, state information of the process, and display this state information to the user;
• at least a first instance and a second instance of backend software that are communicatively coupled to the high-level controller,
• at least a first instance and a second instance of frontend software running on respective client devices of the plant, and
• a software manager that is at least configured to indicate, to each client device, which version of frontend software is available for this client device,
• wherein the first instance of frontend software is of a version that is configured to interface with the version of the first instance of backend software, and
• the second instance of frontend software is of a different version that is configured to interface with the version of the second instance of backend software.