Performance evaluation of a Web-Service-based DMCS

The paper describes a set of experiments conducted on a service-oriented middleware infrastructure in order to evaluate its performance and applicability in the context of Distributed Measurement and Control Systems (DMCS). The infrastructure, entirely based on Web Services, was built using the Windows Communication Foundation (WCF), a software package released by Microsoft to develop distributed applications. The experiments were performed on a real plant equipped with all the instrumentation needed to run control loops for pressure, level, flow and temperature, quantities widely found in the process industry. The work focus on measuring the time delays associated with control loops and remote calls. The methodology of each experiment is described, results are presented and conclusions are drawn.