A heating system, comprising: a heat generator for heating a heat carrier medium, comprising: a burner; an ignition electrode disposed in said burner; an ionization electrode disposed in said burner for measuring an ionization current in a reaction zone of said burner; a heat exchanger for transferring said heat generated by said burner to a heat carrier medium; and a regulation device for regulating an operating condition of said heat generator as a function of regulation parameters (Pa); and a data processing apparatus communicatively connected to said regulation device, comprising a storage device for storing data and a computing device for processing data, said regulation device configured to regularly transmit a plurality of measurement values on said operating condition of said heat generator to said data processing apparatus, and receive regulation parameters (Pa) for regulating said heat generator of said data processing apparatus; said data processing apparatus configured to store said measurement values received by said regulation device in said storage device, calculate a remaining lifetime of said ionization electrode as a function of said stored measurement values, and if said calculated remaining lifetime is equal to or smaller than a first limit, determine and transfer to said regulation device a corrected set of regulation parameters (Pa), characterized in that said computing device is configured to calculate said remaining lifetime of said ionization electrode as a function of accumulated dwell times in a plurality of designated modulation ranges of said burner, wherein each modulation range corresponds to a power of said burner. a heat generator for heating a heat carrier medium, comprising: a burner; an ignition electrode disposed in said burner; an ionization electrode disposed in said burner for measuring an ionization current in a reaction zone of said burner; a heat exchanger for transferring said heat generated by said burner to a heat carrier medium; and a regulation device for regulating an operating condition of said heat generator as a function of regulation parameters (Pa); and a burner; an ignition electrode disposed in said burner; an ionization electrode disposed in said burner for measuring an ionization current in a reaction zone of said burner; a heat exchanger for transferring said heat generated by said burner to a heat carrier medium; and a regulation device for regulating an operating condition of said heat generator as a function of regulation parameters (Pa); and a data processing apparatus communicatively connected to said regulation device, comprising a storage device for storing data and a computing device for processing data, said regulation device configured to regularly transmit a plurality of measurement values on said operating condition of said heat generator to said data processing apparatus, and receive regulation parameters (Pa) for regulating said heat generator of said data processing apparatus; regularly transmit a plurality of measurement values on said operating condition of said heat generator to said data processing apparatus, and receive regulation parameters (Pa) for regulating said heat generator of said data processing apparatus; said data processing apparatus configured to store said measurement values received by said regulation device in said storage device, calculate a remaining lifetime of said ionization electrode as a function of said stored measurement values, and if said calculated remaining lifetime is equal to or smaller than a first limit, determine and transfer to said regulation device a corrected set of regulation parameters (Pa), store said measurement values received by said regulation device in said storage device, calculate a remaining lifetime of said ionization electrode as a function of said stored measurement values, and if said calculated remaining lifetime is equal to or smaller than a first limit, determine and transfer to said regulation device a corrected set of regulation parameters (Pa), characterized in that said computing device is configured to calculate said remaining lifetime of said ionization electrode as a function of accumulated dwell times in a plurality of designated modulation ranges of said burner, wherein each modulation range corresponds to a power of said burner.