One device to find them, and in the cloud unite them

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The effort to make our whole ecosystem of products and services access the internet has been massive. We all see the advantage of accessible data. Companies seek an advantage over competitors and see web and IoT access as one. The problem comes in the fact that the IoT world is now packed with tight, proprietary verticals, accessing only one item or brand. Factories are like this, buildings, organizations, utilities, government, everyone. Organizations are built up over time, hundreds of disparate systems produce data in a myriad of formats, located all over your facilities, with information that may be hard to find and understand.

As a manager, you need to make informed decisions, based on the critical data that can impact whatever your process or goals are. Our team visited a massive office building in DC recently, biggest in the world until the Pentagon was completed. HVAC, SCADA readouts hidden in the basement closets, solar readouts on the roof, 80 year old elevators, steam lines, water chillers, water meters, generators, too many systems, too much hunting for data. With reduced staff, they struggled to stay ahead of problems. They needed help, their vendors with web access were not going to help competitors access their IOT systems. They needed a way to unite everything.

Edge Computing

Our friends at Wikipedia state “Edge computing is a distributed computing paradigm which brings computation and data storage closer to the location where it is needed, to improve response times and save bandwidth”. Small, hardened, network bridging industrial computers (Gateways) located close to where the data is created, take in data from everything around them. Then, through a process known as computational offloading, digests the data and sends only the important data up to the secure IoT cloud. This reduces latency and lowers data costs. These gateways function as a universal edge device. They can take in one to thousands of data streams, connect easily to your Wi-Fi or ethernet system. They have built in memory, SIM card slots for cell or satellite outputs, fixed or mobile. They really are wonderful, and can work in conjunction with or replace legacy hardware systems like PLC’s and RTU’s.

Agnostic Data Engine

Now that we know we can access all this different data, what can we do with it? Nothing..., unless you have a way to take in data in all these different formats, on different devices, in different areas and convert them to a common format. Thats where RiOT, an Agnostic Data Engine comes in, as software loaded into the gateways. Software that can take in data in any format, DNP3, MODBUS,OCR, MODBUS RTU, SNMP, OPC, CANbus, MQTT, etc. with built in protocol converters that bring in data in multiple formats and send it up in a unified format.

Dashboards

Once you have your data headed to the cloud, you need to set up a way to manage it.

The SkyView HMI Dashboard is where you see everything you need to manage your world and prevent crisis. You help design it, configuring your data so it is all in one place. Visible to all that need it, alerting phones and light stacks to stay ahead of failures.

Situational Awareness

Just like in the military, good managers like it as well. RiOT and SkyView provide the first time that you can unite all your critical system data onto one dashboard. Ensuring smooth processes and solving issues before they turn into failures.

Lance Patterson

VP IoT International

Iotintl.net

LPatterson@iotintl.net