This site is provides support for users of the Simatic WinCC Open Architecture SCADA software
at CERN and in the affiliated research institutes gathered in collaborations for the High-Energy Physics Experiments.

For these use cases WinCC OA is made available through the CERN contract with Siemens/ETM, with downloads and software licenses managed by the CERN WinCC OA service to registered authorized users.

Need support or consultancy?

CERN BE-ICS group provides Technology Support for WinCC OA, frameworks and industrial controls technologies.

Do not hesitate to contact us for advice and discussion on system setup, possible architectures, performance tuning, etc, at

Become a registered user, sign a sublicense agreement

Please follow the procedure to register as an authorized user .

A sublicense agreement with your home institute needs to be signed if

• you use WinCC OA at CERN and  your status at CERN is "USER", or you are a subcontractor, etc
• you intend to use WinCC OA out of CERN, in your home institute

Following the registration as an authorized WinCC OA user, new users need to also log in to the CERN central Jira web portal https://its.cern.ch (unless they used it before).
We use the Jira service to handle all requests related to WinCC OA, and this initial login to the https://its.cern.ch Jira portal will ensure that

1. the user may properly authenticate to CERN login pages
2. the emails sent by the user to our support line, are properly identified and atrributed

This way we ensure that user requests are handled in the most efficient way and minimal delays.

Download WinCC OA software

To download the WinCC OA software distribution with the latest patches and CERN add-ons:

• WinCC OA version 3.19 : recommended for production and development

• WinCC OA version 3.21  for LS3 updates (validation, testing, porting at this moment).

Note: other versions are not supported.

Obtain/activate a WinCC OA License 

Being a commercial software, WinCC OA requires a software license, the costs of which are covered by CERN contract.

Please, refer to the dedicated Licensing page. Again, the prerequistite is to register as an authorized user.

Download the Frameworks

Control systems at CERN are developed using the two frameworks - please visit their home pages for downloads

• JCOP Framework
• UNICOS Framework

Training

If you need a WinCC OA and framework training, consider taking one of the Training Courses offered by the CERN Technical Training

• browse the CERN Training catalogue
• get more information about the courses from the dedicated Training page.

Roadmap for WinCC OA versions at CERN

The currently recommended version for production systems is WinCC OA is 3.19.

The next version, to be used for LS3 upgrades, is 3.21 which is now available for validation, testing, porting and development of new systems.
It will become production-ready as of Q4'2026 and will be recommended for the LS3 updates.

It is expected that version 3.23 will be made available at the end of LS3 (2029) as recommended for final upgrades before the LHC Run IV begins. 

A more detailed and up-to-date roadmap document may be consulted here.

About us

WinCC OA service is provided for the community of users at CERN and in affiliated research institutes by the Industrial Controls Group of BE Department (ie BE-ICS) allowing for smooth and reliable running of 850 production WinCC OA systems at CERN and many hundreds of developer systems at CERN and in affiliated research institutes.
Our support line may be reached by the generic email address, , where our 1st and 2nd line will try to provide timely response to your requests, or escalate to the experts in the "SCADA Technologies and Frameworks" section responsible also for all technical deliveries of the service.

The service we provide comprises

• Delivery of WinCC OA software distribution that is customized for particular use scenarios of CERN. New distribution packages, for CERN-recommended versions of Linux and Windows contain a number of genuine add-ons and compatibility enhancement and also simplify the whole installation/deployment process
• New "minor" versions of WinCC OA software are prepared every 6-8 weeks, whenever a new "patch" (for functionality or bugfixing) is made available by the vendor (ETM). Each minor version undergoes testing and validation to pre-qualify it for delivery for CERN users, be it for production or validation
• Follow-up of issues with the product with the vendor, which involves isolating and reproducing the problem, reporting to the vendor, negotiating the delivery of the fix (depending on urgency/priority), handling the delivery of hotfixes or test versions to make them available to the reporting user or planning the delivery in the "patch" release.
• Handling of WinCC OA-related expert questions and feature-enhancements, planning and follow-up with the vendor on their priorities and possible delivery. Over two decades of experience with development and maintenance of WinCC OA is maintained by the expert team responsible for the WinCC OA Service to timely delivery precise answers and taking into account CERN context of use of WinCC OA and the Frameworks (JCOP, UNICOS) built on top of it.
• Maintaining the web site featuring the information about the product, procedures, downloads.
• Technical follow-up of the product, shaping its roadmap with the Technical Management of the company and aligning it with the one of CERN; negotiating the delivery of CERN-specific features, 
• Free-of-charge licenses to run WinCC OA for approved CERN purposes; these could either be delivered in form of license files that could be activated in a dedicated WinCC OA computer, or through the centralized License Server for developers who are at CERN to simplify and provide immediate access to licensing to the developers registered as authorized WinCC OA users.
• Management of Sublicense Agreements and user registrations, for all users at CERN and in the affiliated reseach institutes that wish to use WinCC OA. Follow-ups of Export-Control-Regulations compliance.
• Maintenance of the WinCC OA commercial contract, follow-up of the privileged partnership relation with the company; providing reference visits for ETM customers, as a part of CERN's contractual obligations
• Technical Training for the WinCC OA (and JCOP Framework): 4.5-day course offered at minimal administrative costs.

We also maintain a number of internal services used notably inside BE-ICS (please, do not hesitate to contact us if you see their potential use for it)

• Complete CI/CD platform based on CERN gitlab instance allowing for development, testing and release-management of SCADA software developped with WinCC OA
• automation tools to build "components" of the framework, orchestrate the creation of the project and deployment of components for testing
• Linux container images for development and testing of WinCC OA and Frameworks
• "Virtual SCADA Appliance" - images of a complete virtualized linux desktop with WinCC OA and all necessary development tools, that could be run on any desktop or laptop (Linux, Windows, x86-based Mac), with full Graphical User Interface

Icons created by Freepik, Kiranshastry, Flaticons, Nhor Phai 

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