What is AVEVA?
AVEVA is a British software company that supplies industrial software for engineering, process supervision and operational data, including SCADA, HMI, historians, MES and cloud analytics, and has been wholly owned by Schneider Electric since January 2023. Its best-known products are AVEVA System Platform and InTouch HMI (formerly Wonderware), AVEVA Plant SCADA (formerly Citect) and the AVEVA PI System (formerly OSIsoft PI). AVEVA software runs in the industrial automation of oil and gas, chemicals, energy, water, food and pharmaceuticals, and in many plants it is the layer where OT data comes together before it moves on to IT systems. In Industry 4.0 architectures, AVEVA software is therefore often the bridge between the real-time process and enterprise IT.
🏢 How did AVEVA come about?
AVEVA started in 1967 as the Computer-Aided Design Centre (CADCentre) in Cambridge, a research institute funded by the UK government to develop computer-aided design. It grew into 3D design software for process plants and shipbuilding. The organisation was privatised in 1983, listed on the London Stock Exchange in 1996 and has been called AVEVA since 2001.
Its operations software arrived later through mergers and acquisitions:
| Year | Event | Significance |
|---|---|---|
| 1967 | CADCentre founded in Cambridge | Roots in engineering and design software |
| 2001 | Renamed AVEVA | Brand for plant and ship design |
| 2018 | Merger with Schneider Electric’s industrial software business | Wonderware, Citect and other operations software join AVEVA; Schneider takes about 60% |
| 2021 | Acquisition of OSIsoft (completed 19 March) | The PI System becomes an AVEVA product |
| 2023 | Schneider Electric buys the remaining shares (completed 18 January) | AVEVA is delisted and becomes a wholly owned Schneider subsidiary |
| 2024 | CONNECT launched at Hannover Messe (April) | Cloud platform for industrial data and analytics |
Wonderware itself was founded in California in 1987 and reached AVEVA via Siebe (1998), Invensys (1999) and Schneider Electric (2014). The Wonderware name lives on as a distribution brand; the products are now called AVEVA.
⚙️ Which products does AVEVA offer?
The portfolio is broad. For OT professionals these products matter most:
| Product | Formerly | Function |
|---|---|---|
| AVEVA System Platform | Wonderware System Platform | Object-based application layer for SCADA and multi-site supervision |
| AVEVA InTouch HMI | Wonderware InTouch | Operator screens, alarms and trends |
| AVEVA Plant SCADA | Citect SCADA | SCADA package, rebranded from release 2020 R2 |
| AVEVA Edge | InduSoft Web Studio | Compact HMI/SCADA for machines and edge devices |
| AVEVA Historian | Wonderware Historian | Time-series storage of process data |
| AVEVA PI System | OSIsoft PI | Enterprise historian and data infrastructure |
| AVEVA MES and Batch Management | Wonderware MES and InBatch | Production execution, recipes and batch control |
| AVEVA E3D Design / Unified Engineering | PDMS line | 3D plant design and engineering data |
| CONNECT | AVEVA Data Hub (in part) | Cloud platform (Microsoft Azure) including CONNECT data services and AVEVA Insight |
🧱 How does AVEVA System Platform work?
System Platform is the heart of many AVEVA installations. Engineers model the process as objects: a pump template contains status, temperature, running hours, alarms and energy consumption. Every pump in the plant is an instance of that template. A change to the template propagates to all derived objects in one go. This speeds up engineering and keeps screens, alarm texts and asset models consistent.
The objects run on so-called app engines, spread across several servers, with redundancy for critical parts. Communication with controllers runs through communication drivers, also known as OI Servers. InTouch screens read the objects and turn them into operator displays. Alarms and historical data go to AVEVA Historian.
A typical layout according to the Purdue Model:
| Level | Layer | AVEVA component |
|---|---|---|
| 0-1 | Field and control | PLCs from Siemens, Rockwell Automation, Schneider and others |
| 2 | Supervision | System Platform, InTouch HMI, Plant SCADA |
| 3 | Operations | AVEVA Historian, PI System, MES |
| 3.5 | Industrial DMZ | Replicated historian, PI-to-PI or web access |
| 4-5 | Enterprise and cloud | ERP, CONNECT, analytics and Industrial AI |
🌐 Which protocols does AVEVA use?
AVEVA is largely vendor-independent. Its communication drivers support, among others:
- OPC UA - the preferred route for modern controllers and for linking to other software
- Modbus TCP - simple equipment, energy meters and older PLCs
- Ethernet IP - Rockwell and other CIP-based controllers
- Siemens S7 communication - for S7 PLCs; this is not ProfiNET, because PROFINET IO is the field traffic between PLC and I/O
- DNP3 - telemetry in power and water distribution
- MQTT - IIoT devices and connection to a Unified Namespace
As a result, a single SCADA layer can supervise plants built with different brands. In practice that is an important reason to choose AVEVA over a package tuned mainly to one PLC brand, such as WinCC in Siemens environments.
🔄 How does AVEVA compare with other platforms?
| Feature | AVEVA System Platform | Ignition | Siemens WinCC |
|---|---|---|---|
| Vendor | AVEVA (Schneider Electric) | Inductive Automation | Siemens |
| Strength | Object models, multi-site, historian integration | Web-based, licensed per server | Deep integration with Siemens PLCs |
| Historian | AVEVA Historian or PI System | Built-in historian or SQL database | Built-in archiving |
| Typical use | Large process and utility environments | Medium and large plants | Siemens-dominated installations |
AVEVA also competes with DCS vendors such as ABB, Emerson and Honeywell, which supply their own operator screens and historians. Within Schneider Electric, AVEVA ties in with EcoStruxure, Schneider’s architecture for energy management and automation.
On the other hand, large AVEVA environments are complex. They need substantial server infrastructure, specialist engineers and licence and lifecycle management that looks years ahead, which makes implementations more expensive than with lighter packages.
📊 What does AVEVA do with process data and analytics?
AVEVA has two historian lines. AVEVA Historian stores process data, alarms and events close to System Platform. The PI System is an enterprise historian with PI Data Archive and Asset Framework, strong in the process and energy industries. Both underpin trending, KPIs, OEE and predictive maintenance.
On top of that data AVEVA provides:
- Predictive and advanced analytics - pattern recognition and anomaly detection on historian data
- Digital twins - combining engineering data, real-time data and simulation
- Alarm analysis - historical analysis of alarm load in line with ISA-18.2
- CONNECT - cloud platform on Microsoft Azure, since April 2024, with data, visualisation and analytics services; the former AVEVA Data Hub is now called CONNECT data services
- AVEVA Insight - cloud dashboards and remote monitoring across multiple sites, now offered on CONNECT
🔐 How do you secure an AVEVA environment?
AVEVA servers sit at the centre of the OT architecture. A compromised SCADA or historian server can lead to production downtime, manipulated process data or loss of situational awareness for operators. CISA regularly publishes advisories on AVEVA products. In June 2025, for example, they covered PI Data Archive and PI Server (CVE-2025-44019 and CVE-2025-36539): an authenticated user could shut down subsystems, causing a denial of service.
Practical measures:
| Measure | What it means for AVEVA |
|---|---|
| Network Segmentation | SCADA and historian servers in their own zones; only the historian replica in the DMZ |
| Patch Management | Follow AVEVA security bulletins and CISA advisories; test patches first |
| MFA and Jump Server | Remote access only through a jump server with MFA |
| Application Whitelisting | Only approved software on SCADA servers and engineering stations |
| Logging | Record logins, configuration changes and alarms centrally |
| Backup | Keep the Galaxy database, InTouch applications and historian configuration offline |
Design the zones and conduits according to IEC 62443. For organisations covered by the Dutch Cybersecurity Act (the Dutch implementation of NIS2), these measures are part of the duty of care.
🧭 How do you approach an AVEVA implementation?
- Inventory - map PLCs, protocols, tag counts and existing screens
- Model - design templates and the asset hierarchy, preferably in line with ISA-95
- Choose the historian - AVEVA Historian per site, PI System for multiple sites or enterprise analytics
- Design the architecture - redundancy, Purdue zones and the link to MES and ERP
- Secure - segmentation, least-privilege accounts and remote access via a jump server
- Manage - configuration management, version control and lifecycle management of software and licences
Large environments with tens of thousands of tags need modular object models and clear governance over who may change templates.
❓ Frequently asked questions
Is Wonderware the same as AVEVA?
Wonderware was an American software brand that joined AVEVA in 2018 through the merger with Schneider Electric’s software business. Products such as Wonderware InTouch and Wonderware System Platform are now called AVEVA InTouch HMI and AVEVA System Platform. The Wonderware name is only still used as a distribution brand.
Who owns AVEVA?
AVEVA has been wholly owned by Schneider Electric since 18 January 2023. Before that, Schneider had held about 60% of the shares since 2018 and AVEVA was listed in London. AVEVA’s headquarters are in Cambridge, United Kingdom.
What is the difference between AVEVA Historian and the AVEVA PI System?
AVEVA Historian is the historian from the Wonderware line and is tightly integrated with System Platform. The AVEVA PI System comes from OSIsoft, which AVEVA acquired in 2021, and is an enterprise data platform with Asset Framework for multiple sites. Many organisations run AVEVA Historian locally and the PI System centrally.
Does AVEVA only work with Schneider PLCs?
No, AVEVA software is largely vendor-independent. Through communication drivers and OPC UA, AVEVA connects to PLCs from Siemens, Rockwell Automation, Mitsubishi and Schneider Electric, among others. That makes AVEVA suitable for plants with controllers from several brands.
What is AVEVA CONNECT?
AVEVA CONNECT is AVEVA’s cloud platform, unveiled at Hannover Messe in April 2024 and built on Microsoft Azure. It offers data, visualisation and analytics services and links products such as the PI System and Unified Engineering. CONNECT complements on-premises SCADA but does not replace local process control.
Does AVEVA software fall under IEC 62443?
AVEVA software is a product, but the environment it runs in should be designed according to IEC 62443, with zones, conduits and security levels. For an AVEVA installation this means segmentation, patch management and controlled remote access, among other things. Organisations covered by NIS2 and the Dutch Cybersecurity Act must be able to demonstrate such measures.
📌 In summary
AVEVA is Schneider Electric’s industrial software subsidiary, offering SCADA, HMI, historians, MES and cloud analytics from the Wonderware, Citect and OSIsoft lines. In many plants, System Platform, InTouch and the PI System form the layer between PLCs and IT. That central role calls for sound object models, a well-designed historian architecture and security in line with IEC 62443.