SCADA\'s history is rooted in distribution applications, such as power, natural gas, and water pipelines, where there is a need to gather remote data through potentially unreliable or intermittent low-bandwidth and high-latency links. SCADA systems use open-loop control
The boundaries between DCS and SCADA/PLC systems are blurring as time goes on.[5] The technical limits that drove the designs of these various systems are no longer as much of an issue. Many PLC platforms can now perform quite well as a small DCS, using remote I/O and are sufficiently reliable that some SCADA systems actually manage closed loop control over long distances. With the increasing speed of today\'s processors, many DCS products have a full line of PLC-like subsystems that weren\'t offered when they were initially developed.