Ignition 8.3 is the latest update to Inductive Automation’s SCADA and IIoT platform, and as with any new release, the key questions we're hearing are: what’s new, what’s changed, and what does it mean for my company?
At Nukon, we work with a wide range of technologies and platforms, helping our clients to find the right fit. When a major release like Ignition 8.3 becomes available, we make time to understand the new features and to help you determine what it means for your business. 
For organisations already running Ignition, the update is designed to be evolutionary rather than disruptive. But now, you might need some help to understand whether to make adjustments or what new features you might want to leverage.
To help answer your questions and to put the new release into context, we spoke with Amy Sudibyo, Technical Lead at Nukon, who has been hands‑on with the Ignition 8.3 beta and has worked extensively with previous Ignition versions in real‑world deployments.
What's included in the update?
In addition to improvements that help to refine the platform, there are a couple of notable changes.
Gateway Deployment Modes
Deployment modes allow for a single gateway to have different configurations to be used in different scenarios.
This makes it easy to switch between different configurations for Dev/Test/Prod environments by simply changing modes. For example, dev mode might have a database connection configured for an internal test database, while production mode will point to a production database.
This feature will be of particular benefit to anyone in the early stages of their digital journey who may not have the resources to maintain separate dev, test and prod instances of Ignition.
Time Series Historian
Ignition now supports an internal time series historian built on QuestDB.
It’s designed to be a high-performance historian capable of handling up to 2 million data points per second. Because it’s internal to Ignition, it doesn’t require a separate database backend to configure, manage or license – a great option for users who don’t have in-house database administration capability and need a data storage option that ‘just works’.
File-based Configuration
The gateway configuration is now stored in files, allowing Ignition to leverage the benefits of modern software version control and CI/CD tools. File-based configuration also means it’s easier to see where a project has changed, meaning faster resolution for fault-finding errors during the project development and migration.
Nukon’s speciality is bridging the gap between the worlds of IT and OT, so we have a lot of visibility into the challenges that both teams face.
We often see IT teams frustrated at OT technology’s lack of change management options and cyber concerns from not keeping OT systems up to date. Support for CI/CD pipelines helps to balance IT’s need for traceability and change control with OT’s need for continuous delivery.
Perspective Forms and Offline Mode
The form component allows the easy creation of interactive forms that validate user input, without all of the legwork involved with making a form from scratch, and is designed to be mobile-friendly. Offline mode will queue any form submissions and upload the data once a connection is reestablished, as well as allowing the user to access a cached version of the application.
This will be useful for large sites with incomplete network coverage. An operator might need to troubleshoot an issue in a no-coverage area – with offline mode, they can still access Ignition to retrieve troubleshooting steps and log details of their maintenance actions in a form.
Above: a snapshot of Ignition 8.3 Beta event streams (image courtesy of Inductive Automation).
Event Streams
Event streams are an event-driven data pipeline within Ignition. They provide a centralised place to build workflows for data handling in real-time without polling.
Potential use cases include:
- custom event triggers/notifications (outside of the alarming system)
- real-time dashboarding/more responsive UIs
- easier processing of data from external sources such as APIs.
Alarm Metrics
Every tag folder now includes its own "Alarm Metrics" tag, exposing key insights without additional scripting or dashboard setup. It’s a ready-made way to monitor alarm behaviour and can be included in UDTs to ensure consistency.
Will this make changes to anything clients currently have in place? If so, what do they need to prepare for, or consider?
Ignition 8.3 is a significant update to the platform. The update is so substantial that Ignition went from 8.1 straight to 8.3 (there is no 8.2).
Customers with an active support plan will get the upgrade to 8.3 for free, so it may be better value to renew your plan rather than paying for the upgrade.
Upgrading from 8.1 to 8.3 should be a reasonably straightforward process for most applications. However, as there are quite a few differences between the versions, there may be some specific upgrade procedures or configuration changes required, particularly in applications that utilise multiple Ignition gateways communicating over Ignition’s native Gateway Network.
Nukon’s Ignition-certified engineers and consultants can help plan your upgrade to minimise interruption to critical operations.
The other thing to keep in mind is that active support for 8.1 will end in March 2027, so all customers should consider planning for a migration to 8.3 in the next 18 months.
How is Ignition currently being used across industry? What are some projects involving Ignition that the Nukon team has been working on?
I can give you some examples of usage, of course, being mindful not to share any sensitive client information. Here are some examples of the types of projects we’ve deployed Ignition for:
Customer 1 - Ignition in Manufacturing
A bespoke manufacturer is using Ignition to collect data from their global manufacturing sites by connecting to factory floor equipment and making that data available to corporate users for analysis. Consistency, change management and cyber security are critically important because the client has distributed sites and because of the tight IP control of their niche-manufactured products.
They would like to manage all their Ignition gateways from a central location using an external version control system such as Git. The new file-based gateway configuration in Ignition 8.3 allows them to easily integrate with Git and manage deployments.
Customer 2 - Ignition in FMCG manufacturing
A fast-moving consumer goods (FMCG) manufacturer has two instances of Ignition on-site with separate functions:
- One gateway is a traditional SCADA to monitor and control the PLCs on the production equipment.
- The other gateway is an MES using the Sepasoft modules for Ignition to collate production data, provide manufacturing insights and function as an integration layer between the ERP and the control system.
The event streams feature provides a centralised, low-code way to handle event-based flow of data between these systems.
Customer 3 - Ignition in the energy sector
An electricity generator has a central Ignition instance monitored by its central control room, which is connected to the Ignition instances at their sites distributed around Australia.
Due to the number of sites, there is a high volume of alarms that need to be monitored by the central control room. These are subject to an ongoing rationalisation process to ensure all alarms are useful and allow the operators to work effectively.
The new Alarm Metrics feature provides alarm metrics at a folder level without requiring engineering effort or custom code. This allows them to easily get alarm statistics broken down by area, site or asset to identify problem areas.
What new feature are you most interested in, or do you think is most exciting?
As a specialist in the IT/OT integration and digital transformation space, Nukon uses Ignition for a range of applications outside of traditional SCADA functionality. These include Ignition as an MES, middleware or database front end.
Event streams is a key feature in 8.3 that will level up Ignition as a multipurpose data integration platform.
Event streams could be leveraged for a range of applications:
- Easier processing and scaling of data from external sources such as APIs
- Custom event triggers and notifications outside of the traditional SCADA alarm system. We often see use cases for alerts based on events received via API or from the MES system
- Live data streaming allows for real-time dashboarding and more responsive UIs.
Migrating to Ignition 8.3
From what we’ve seen in the beta version, Ignition 8.3 is a significant update, but think of it as a step forward, rather than a dramatic shift that’s going to change everything you are familiar with.
Keeping an eye on what’s ahead with Ignition 8.3 means your operators can plan upgrades on their own terms and be ready to hit the ground running once the release is live.
The full version of Ignition 8.3 will be released on September 16 at Inductive Automation’s Ignition Community Conference.
Do you have a question about the new version of Ignition, or how to update the version running in your facility? We can help you navigate the change before end-of-support. Get in touch with us today.
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