Solution Delivers Industrial DevOps, Security, and AI Capabilities for Industrial Controller Management at Scale
NUREMBERG, Germany, Nov. 25, 2025 /PRNewswire-PRWeb/ -- Today at SPS 2025, Software Defined Automation announced the general availability of its next-generation solution for industrial controller management at scale. Leveraging Industrial DevOps, security, and AI capabilities, the cloud-centered platform provides a single pane of glass for manufacturers' control systems. It is built for ease of use, speed of implementation, and scale across the largest manufacturing networks.
"The tools automation engineers are expected to use as part of their daily routines are outdated and fail to get the job done without many workarounds," said Dr. Josef Waltl, Founder and CEO, at Software Defined Automation. "We are on a mission to give these engineers the tools they deserve and enable them to manage their controllers like modern software systems. Today we are delivering an approachable, efficient vendor-agnostic software-defined control plane that empowers teams with a modern environment for more efficient factories."
Modern experience for more efficient factories
From faster deployments to streamlined onboarding of users and devices, the platform is designed to reduce complexity for an automation engineer. Intuitive workflows and flexible organization models allow teams to manage devices, project versions, and pipelines from one site to hundreds.
The redesigned console allows engineers to manage both users and industrial controllers at a very large scale through policy-driven access rights management, multidimensional asset organization, advanced workflows, and reporting, including at-a-glance status for all devices managed in the platform.
In addition, Software Defined Automation is previewing a custom Terraform provider for its platform that automates the creation/update/deletion of users' SDA resources. Terraform is an industry-standard infrastructure as code (IaC) tool that allows users to create and manage resources in different systems, such as cloud environments. This is one further step to code controller architectures for better resource management and versioning of an entire system's configuration.
Git integration, comprehensive Siemens backup, and SFTP/SMB capabilities expand core Industrial DevOps
Software Defined Automation's Version Control now integrates with GitHub, which is used increasingly by manufacturers and machine builders as a centralized versioning tool. The integration, currently in preview, links GitHub repositories with the SDA project repository so that users can track versions in GitHub and compare code changes for binary or text files and graphical languages, including function block diagrams and ladder logic, in the SDA platform.
In addition to its extensive support for Siemens TIA Portal, Software Defined Automation now delivers comprehensive backup capabilities for SIMATIC STEP 7 from V5.7. In addition, live value backup for instance data blocks, safety blocks, and tag values from Siemens SIMATIC S7-1200 and S7-1500 controllers is now in preview.
Support for SFTP and Server Message Block (SMB) protocols, now generally available, expand backup and restore of a wider variety of controllers, including KUKA robots.
Advanced security reduces gaps in protection for industrial controllers
With the increase in volume and sophistication of cyberthreats across the manufacturing industry, the need to better protect a factory's core intellectual property (IP)—industrial controller code—persists. Software Defined Automation's expanding security capabilities are built on a zero trust architecture to help safeguard industrial operations, strengthen reliability, and ensure operational resilience.
In this release, Security Hub and custom roles are generally available. Security Hub includes a vault that enables secure credential storage for PLC devices and projects as well as automated credential rotation for select PLC vendors. Custom roles allow administrators to define policies by asset type, action, document, and project, and associate those policies with specific users or roles. By making the assignment of permissions consistent and repeatable across large numbers of users and devices, organizations reduce risk, improve efficiency, and easily scale governance.
Detailed audit logs that establish clear trails of user actions, system events, and changes with the platform are available as a public preview. By tracking, recording, and preserving digital activity, audit logs improve security, accountability, compliance, and operational integrity in the production environment.
Pragmatic AI automates routine tasks for enhanced operational efficiency
The new Software Defined Automation Factory Operator, available as a private preview, is an intelligent assistant that handles routine tasks and processes, such as interactively creating and querying assets or generating custom insights into backups or device status. It frees engineers up for more productive work so they can fast track innovative development cycles.
Factory Agent, Software Defined Automation's tool for AI-generated code documentation, has also been updated with a private preview that provides explanations of differences between project versions. It delivers an overview, detailed analysis, and the functional impact of any changes, helping users understand versions, troubleshoot, and write better code updates.
Meeting customer needs with more support for common automation vendors
With this latest release, Software Defined Automation increases its support for the automation vendors most often used by its customers. New and expanded support includes Beckhoff TwinCAT 3.1 Build 4026, B&R Automation Studio 3.0.90 and 4.12, CODESYS, Rockwell Automation Studio 5000 v37, SEW-EURODRIVE MOVITOOLS MotionStudio 6.60, and Siemens SIMATIC Manager 5.7 and TIA Portal v20.
Availability
Software Defined Automation's next-generation platform is now generally available for all new and existing customers in six languages, and anyone can sign up for a 14-day trial at www.softwaredefinedautomation.io/sda-trial. Live value backup and audit logs are available as public previews, while the Terraform provider, GitHub integration, Factory Operator, and Factory Agent comparisons of versions are private previews available to select customers. Customers who would like to participate in the private previews can register their interest at www.softwaredefinedautomation.io/preview.
About Software Defined Automation
Founded by manufacturing, industrial software, and cloud experts, Software Defined Automation envisions a future where industrial controller management is simple, secure, and efficient. The company brings IT-like best practices for development, operations, and security to industrial automation to transform the way engineers interact with and maintain their control systems. Its modern cloud solution for managing multi-vendor automation environments helps manufacturers increase factory uptime, reduce mean time to recover, and maximize the productivity of their assets. The company is headquartered in Boston with offices in Munich, Germany. For more information, visit www.softwaredefinedautomation.io.
Media Contact
Hilary Ives, Software Defined Automation, 1 339-234-6929, [email protected], www.softwaredefinedautomation.io
SOURCE Software Defined Automation
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