Cloud Computing and Smart Grid - What Does It Mean to Safety and Security

In the October issue of Plant Engineering, National Instruments had an article - "Taking interfaces to the next level from the application to the cloud". In the article, it stated among the newest interfaces are web-based user interfaces with web services to enable remote monitoring of measurement and control systems. In the case of a wind farm, it simplifies turbine inspections. The article states that for safety and security reasons, these applications should always be read-only. This statement strongly implies that applications could be more than just read-only. Often role-based access allows different roles to have different levels of access. For safety and security reasons, control system designs should not allow applications such these to be more than read-only.
Joe Weiss