by Gary Mintchell | Nov 7, 2016 | Internet of Things
Dell Technologies Internet of Things group just keeps expanding. It’s differentiating strategy is to leverage an array of partnerships building upon the Dell IoT platform. Here are more examples.
Dell announced that Systems Integrators (SIs) have now been added to the Dell Internet of Things (IoT) Solutions Partner Program, which currently has an ecosystem of over 50 Independent Software Vendors (ISVs). These new additions to the program include Action Point, Datatrend Technologies, L&T Technology Services and Mobiliya.
This program expansion is reflective of Dell’s effort to build a holistic ecosystem of IoT solutions that span industries – from energy to manufacturing to transportation. With the addition of SIs, there’s now a broader selection of partners that can help customers navigate the fragmented IoT landscape, identify the right solution to address their needs and take projects from proof of concept to a robust deployment.
“We’re passionate about providing our customers with a comprehensive IoT ecosystem to help them innovate and move an idea from concept to reality,” said Jeff Brown, Vice President, Global IoT and Embedded PC Sales, Dell EMC, Global OEM Solutions. “By adding SIs into the mix, we are helping to bridge the gap between IT and OT, and transform IoT into a profitable market reality.”
Based on TECHnalysis Research’s Enterprise IoT survey, regardless of company size, many organizations are interested in working with systems and operations integrators that specialize in IoT. Dell’s continued expansion of its IoT Partner Program is designed to offer customers a broad spectrum of industry-specific expertise in conjunction with Dell’s reputation as a global leader in computing technology.
The program combines a global, multi-tiered (Executive/Premier, Associate/Preferred, Registered) network of experienced technology providers including SIs, ISVs, and IHVs, all supported by Dell’s broad portfolio of IoT-enabling assets, which are designed to help organizations develop, deploy and maintain leading-edge IoT solutions. By joining the Dell IoT Solutions Partner Program, partners benefit from:
• Increased market awareness backed by a reputable global leader in computing technology.
• Access to a robust and reliable product portfolio, including purpose-built, intelligent edge gateways and embedded PCs, security and manageability tools, data center and cloud infrastructure.
• Opportunities for incremental business growth and acceleration through Dell’s multiple partner tiers.
Supporting Quotes:
• “From our viewpoint Dell is the only global technology partner that offers as comparable and as comprehensive a range of IoT optimised solutions from the edge to the data centre to the cloud,” reflects Head of IoT, Ivan O’Connor from Action Point. “Dell’s clear commitment to and focus on being at the vanguard of IoT gives us as an IoT systems integrator and a long standing Dell partner the ability and the competitive advantage to build out cutting edge new IoT solutions to transform our clients businesses.”
• “Datatrend is excited to work with Dell IoT partners and customers to scale and accelerate their speed to market, delivering friction-free IoT solution deployment, including end-to-end IT infrastructure integration, connectivity and device installation, from data center to the edge of network,” said Charlie Cox, President, Datatrend Technologies.
• “Our partnership with Dell will help engineer IoT solutions for global businesses to innovate, create fascinating customer experiences and enable new revenue streams. We have over 30 R&D labs that specialize in smart product design, device and cloud security, sensor engineering and advanced data analytics, said Amit Chadha, Chief Sales Officer & Whole-time Director, L&T Technology Services. “Our combined approach with Dell is simple – build on your existing devices and systems to make them smart, secure, and interoperable. Together, the possibilities we can create for the entire technology ecosystem are limitless.”
• “We are extremely excited to be collaborating with Dell on their innovative IoT Solutions Partner Program. With IoT demanding robust offerings across the technology spectrum, these kinds of partnerships are incredibly important,” says CEO of Mobiliya Krish Kupathil. “For IoT initiatives, Mobiliya provides its device-to-cloud system integration expertise along with deep knowledge in various IoT protocols and security. The combined competencies of both companies will provide significant value-add to customers across different industries.”
by Gary Mintchell | Nov 2, 2016 | Interoperability, News, Organizations
This is interoperability news day at The Manufacturing Connection with this announcement of an Internet of Things sensor-to-cloud testbed. This announcement also includes SAP (see other news today), along with TE Connectivity, ifm, and the OPC Foundation.
The objective of sensor-to-the-cloud connectivity is to make sensor data available to information technology (IT) systems in near real time, enabling advanced analytics. This is of particular interest to operators of existing manufacturing facilities, as it provides them with opportunities to increase efficiencies, e.g. through reductions in energy consumption.
This type of connectivity and use case has been forming for many years. All the pieces are coming together for a better application.
The Industrial Internet Consortium (IIC) has approved an IIC testbed on sensor-to-the-cloud connectivity called the “Smart Manufacturing Connectivity for Brownfield Sensors Testbed.” The testbed, led by IIC member TE Connectivity (TE), a world leader in connectivity and sensors, is being carried out with fellow IIC member SAP, the world leader in enterprise applications in terms of software and software-related service revenue, ifm, a worldwide leader in sensors, controllers and systems for automation, and the OPC Foundation, the foundation of the industrial interoperability standard OPC Unified Architecture (OPC UA). The idea for the testbed was publicly unveiled at the Hanover Fair in April of this year.
Unlike new deployments, where the appropriate connectivity may be designed in from the beginning, smart solutions are required for these “brownfield” installations in order to enable easy integration at both the operational technology (OT) and the IT level to reduce downtime and save costs.
The Smart Manufacturing Connectivity for Brownfield Sensors Testbed will:
- Introduce a retrofit hardware solution (the “Y-Gateway”) that makes use of existing physical connectivity
- Extract sensor data from the automation system without impacting operations
- Deliver the sensor data to SAP’s IT platform through a secure OT/IT communication based on OPC UA (IEC 62541)
- Define and implement a common device model based on an available open standard to allow for the easy integration of an IO-Link sensor with IT, enabling the remote configuration of the sensor
“Testbeds are a major focus and activity of the IIC and its members,” said IIC Executive Director, Dr. Richard Soley. “Our testbeds are where new technologies, applications, products, services and processes – the innovation and opportunities of the industrial Internet – can be initiated, thought through and rigorously tested to ascertain their usefulness and viability before coming to market.”
by Gary Mintchell | Oct 26, 2016 | Events, Internet of Things, News
The conference was all about digital transformation. Company leaders must begin thinking about digitally transforming their companies or they face disruption from digital startups.
This was Dell EMC World—the first user conference after the major acquisition of EMC by Dell forming Dell Technologies. Touting the size and breadth of the combined companies, Michael Dell began the meeting, “Let the transformation begin.”
A poll of business leaders returned these sobering thoughts:
- 45% may be out of business in 3 years;
- 48% 2-3 years see big changes;
- 78% digital startups will be a threat
As Jeff Immelt, CEO of GE put it, “You go to bed an industrial company and wake up a digital and analytics company.”
“Dell EMC will be the trusted provider of essential infrastructure for the next industrial revolution,” proclaimed Dell further into his keynote.
I attended the conference at the invitation of the Dell social influencer marketing group. Press conference attendance broke down as 41% analysts, 41% press, and 18% social influencers. They expect the press number to decline and influencer number to increase over time.
Michael Dell in press conference: “Internet of Everything helps customers embrace the digital future.” Dell also sees the need to help customers move from CapEx to OpEx. This need financial need from customers was echoed the next week at the Emerson Exchange. Companies in many industries at this time have slashed capital expenditures. Any movement forward in facility and process improvements must be done through operations expenditures.
This was my second Dell World. The Internet of Things group is just over a year old. Its unveiling was last year’s conference. This year’s presence was greatly enhanced. The booth layout simulated an ice cream factory (see diagram). Emerson Automation was represented (along with partners OSIsoft, Microsoft, and Dell) showing valves, wireless transmitters, date ported to a database into the Microsoft Azure cloud using a Dell IoT Gateway.
Emerson’s Jim Cahill wrote this section of the process in his Emerson Process Experts blog.
Dell has taken an embedded PC platform, added its services, mixed in a variety of partners and baked up an IoT solution. Other partners included Air Watch, Eigen Innovations, V5 Systems, IBM, KMC Controls, PTC Kepware, ELM Fieldsight. Solutions included quality, security, data communications, analytics.
As I have written several times over the past year, Dell is serious about the manufacturing space. The IoT platform is designed to leverage Dell’s vast IT contacts to achieve IT/OT convergence from the IT side.
Dell Technologies new products
Dell Technologies is a serious technology player on many fronts. I’ll just highlight some of the many announcements it made during the conference.
Michael Dell was insistent that integration of Dell and EMC was achieving rapid results. Many of the products announced resulted from just that integration.
From the press release:
Global business leaders agreed that moving toward a cloud model, expanding software development capabilities and enabling faster innovation and deeper insights from data are key strategies to digital transformation. However companies are struggling to evolve their data centers, with 69% saying they are being held back by too many traditional applications. They are challenged with reducing sprawl and spend, while bringing systems up-to-date. New products and solutions announced this week at Dell EMC World are designed to help organizations accelerate their transformation and manage costs.
“To ensure that they’re not “Uber’d”, “Airbnb’d” or “Tesla’d” in their marketplace, today’s organizations must embark on a digital transformation. To truly realize their digital future, we believe the vast majority of organizations will transform their IT through a hybrid cloud strategy, ” said David Goulden, president, Infrastructure Solutions Group, Dell EMC. “The first ‘no regrets’ step is to modernize their data center through the most advanced converged infrastructure, servers, storage, data protection, and cybersecurity technologies to name a few. This week we are launching a wave of new products and solutions designed as the building blocks for this endeavor.”
Announced this week at Dell EMC World:
- #1 Scale-Out NAS System Dell EMC Isilon Goes All-Flash For Unstructured Data
Dell EMC will announce a new member of the Isilon product family, combining the high performance of flash technology with the #1 scale-out NAS platform in the industry. Dell EMC Isilon All-Flash is designed to help IT organizations modernize their infrastructure and deliver on the capabilities of a digital business.
- Dell EMC Extends Common User Experience to SC Series
Dell EMC will announced it has boosted the capabilities of its mid-market proven SC Series (formerly Compellent) storage arrays by making it interoperable with the world’s leading portfolio of storage management, mobility and data protection solutions formerly only available to EMC customers.
- Extraordinary Dell EMC Partner Program To Provide Transformational Business Value and OpportunityDell EMC announced a preview of the company’s new and highly anticipated channel partner program. The Dell EMC Partner Program provides an unprecedented business opportunity for partners and validates Dell EMC’s commitment to the channel. Built on three core tenets—to be Simple, Predictable, and Profitable—the new program strategy ensures partners have ample opportunity, business continuity and commensurate profitability no matter their program tier.
by Gary Mintchell | Oct 18, 2016 | News, Operations Management, Software
Wonderware made several industrial software announcements at its event in Orlando the beginning of October. I decided not to go, since I was already committed to so many trips in September and October and November. Good thing—I missed the rendezvous with Matthew the Hurricane.
Prometheus
Touted as the major introduction of the show, Wonderware by Schneider Electric introduced an application dubbed Prometheus. Four years in development, Prometheus is described as a metadata manager by Scott Clark, Director of Control Configuration, the leader of the effort.
I’ve taken several days to interview a number of people and think about this before writing. At first I thought of it as an Integrated Development Environment or perhaps as a successor to InFusion—the Enterprise Control System. It is sort of those, but it is a high level open programming environment that automates complex configuration tasks and enables the configuration of control components, regardless of type or brand. It can supervise and visualize a plant-wide control system as well as program parts of it and deploy to any of a number of control targets from PLCs to Raspberry Pi.
It also integrates well with Wonderware HMI/SCADA.
Clark continues, “One tool to configure and manage your entire control system, without limitation. Prometheus is comprehensive and intelligent. It structures and simplifies the entire development process, delivering benefits to everyone on the control team.”
Control code is developed in Prometheus and saved to an XML file. The file is targeted to an IEC 61131 ladder diagram which can be targeted to a specific platform through a template. Schneider Electric has developed some templates, but the door is open for systems integrators to develop their own. The target file can be Structured Text, C, C#, or other languages.
For the operations team, Prometheus delivers total transparency with an online view of executing logic, and total control with simulation to override faults to keep the process running; no more jumping wires in the cabinet or forcing values in the controller. And with real time process monitoring during change deployment, it is now possible to implement process improvement, and safely deploy to the controller, without disruption.
As an example, say in Prometheus I create a set of code that may do the logic for a valve with a couple limit switches. Then I put some interlock code, setpoint code, etc. Finally I create a model that says my target is a Schneider Modicon PLC, a Siemens PLC, a Rockwell PLC, or a Raspberry Pi
From there you go online with Prometheus to see the code executing at runtime. Also sometime either before or after the code deploy to the PLC it also deploys code to System Platform so you have your HMI objects ready to go.
InStudio
Wonderware Online InStudio, an Infrastructure-as-a-Service offering “revolutionizes the way software engineers, Systems Integrators and end users can provision, develop, test and maintain their HMI and SCADA applications.” This collection of industrial data aggregation, storage and visualization functionalities is now called Wonderware Online InSight, built on Microsoft Azure.
Wonderware Online InStudio is a secure, cloud subscription service that lets Systems Integrators overlay a next-generation infrastructure that is highly available and scalable. This offering supports improved collaboration during the development process across geographies and roles. InStudio provides a multifaceted environment used for development, testing, version management, and training.
InTouch Omni
Friends have told me that the bigger story of the conference was an updated System Platform now called InTouch Omni. “The engineering and runtime experience for visualization are now very different and really, really good. No more InTouch required for visualization runtime (even though they call it InTouch).
Beta users and third party application developers are now being actively sought. Not being shy about the new product, Schneider marketers say they need people “to help usher in a new generation of operations management. So dramatic is this next generation product that a new industry descriptive term is warranted – Operations Management Interface, or OMI.”
Improvements include an improved UI visual experience, expanded web-based access and an enhanced ability to access and aggregate Industrial Internet of Things (IIoT) data.
by Gary Mintchell | Sep 21, 2016 | Automation, Internet of Things, News
Hannover Messe brought a slice of its automation trade show to this year’s International Manufacturing Technology Show (IMTS)—a venue known for huge machine tools. This was the second time, and it seems to be gaining some traction. Most exhibitors seemed to be central European, but there was a presence from a number of other North American automation companies not to mention many from Asia.
I stopped by a large number of stands. Below are five that had press releases new for the show. Opto 22 was at the show with an opportunity to see its recently released product with a RESTful API in the real plastic, so to speak. That plus a promised MQTT support maintains Opto’s usual spot as an early adopter, if not first adopter in many cases, of IT technologies in its OT products. I also stopped by to talk with Tom Burke and Stefan Hoppe at the OPC Foundation stand. Its news was reported here last week.
(My two-day silence was caused by travel to California and participating in the Inductive Automation Ignition Customer Conference. More on that later.)
Companies addressed below:
- Dell Technologies
- Beckhoff Automation
- Bedrock Automation
- Universal Robots
- Carbon (3D printing)
Dell Technologies
Appearing at IMTS in the automation hall for the first time, Dell Technologies showed its IoT Gateway and Embedded capabilities along with several partners that help it provide a complete Internet of Things solution from data collection through storage, analysis, and uploading to the cloud.
The major solution thrust for Dell thus far in its first year of existence has been predictive analytics especially for predictive maintenance applications. One of the featured partners was IBM Watson, using the famed supercomputer power for predictive analytics and EAP—its predictive maintenance solution.
Eigen showed a real-time quality application with in-process inspection. Some real-time analytics are performed in the gateway before sending data asynchronously to the cloud for further analysis.
Software AG, a partner from the beginning, provides a predictive maintenance software module that provided high speed streaming analytics in an ice cream factory. The module can also create service requests, see anomalies, order spare parts.
Beckhoff Automation
Check me out in these cool Microsoft Hololense Augmented Reality (AR) glasses. In this demo, I could see live data streaming from a robotic application. Beckhoff also showed support for MQTT and AMQP transport technologies (it also has OPC UA embedded), an Internet of Things coupler to Microsoft Azure cloud, and power over Ethernet on EtherCat P.
Bedrock Automation
Bedrock Automation has built an entirely new automation and control platform from the ground up. Security is designed in, even to the point of designing and manufacturing its own chips. It offers single, double, and triple redundancy, IEC 61131 programming along with a powerful function block editor that brings it into the DCS world. And it features software configurable I/O, software configurable serial module (5 to a card can be RS-232, RS-422, RS-485), and software configurable Ethernet card (think Profinet, EtherNet/IP, etc.).
At IMTS it announced its new intelligent, standalone power supply. The SPS.500 Secure Power Supply provides deep trust cyber security authentication and onboard intelligence for diagnostics and secure Ethernet communications. Encased in a NEMA 4X sealed aluminum enclosure, users of any PLC, SCADA RTU, PAC or DCS can retrofit to the new SPS.500 inside or outside enclosures, anywhere in a plant and in harsh environments.
Additional features include:
- Ethernet and OPC/UA communications, enabling local or remote monitoring of power supply health for greater system reliability and plant safety
- A powerful cyber secure microprocessor and onboard memory for diagnostics and software-defined functionality
- A built-in redundancy module, which simplifies installation and increases reliability by eliminating the need for an external redundancy module
- Two built-in, software-configurable Form C contact relays, which provide operating and diagnostic status
Universal Robots
One of the big things in automation this year is collaborative robots, or cobos. A leader in this area is a new entrant—Universal Robots. This Danish company showed its products at IMTS. It also announced two unique new initiatives.
- Universal Robots+: an ecosystem of products and applications, users choosing accessories, end-effectors, and software solutions from Universal Robots+, both distributors and end-users, get high security and predictability that applications will run well from the start.
- +YOU: a unique, free-of-charge developer program, offering a powerful marketing and support platform for the flourishing eco-system of UR-robot application developers.
Alongside the launch of Universal Robots+, a new update for the robot arm’s operating software has been published. The new release (Software Version 3.3) includes updates such as the Profinet IO device functionality. The new compatibility with Profinet protocols opens up numerous additional areas of deployment and activities for robots. “A key feature of the update supporting the Universal Robots+ platform is the ability for providers to now offer solutions that interface seamlessly with the UR software,” says Østergaard.
Carbon 3D
Carbon 3D announced new funding from strategic investors toward the goal of bringing additive technology to more customers transitioning from prototyping-only use cases, to applications requiring final production quality parts with great surface finish, broad and expanding material options and the plans to transition to mainstream manufacturing. A Silicon Valley 3D printing company working at the intersection of hardware, software and molecular science, Carbon also plans to offer its proprietary CLIP technology internationally and is accelerating production to meet worldwide demand for its M1 printer.
The expansion is supported by $81 million from new investors GE Ventures, BMW, Nikon and JSR, as well as existing investors, bringing Carbon’s funding total to $222 million. More details of additional strategic investors involved in this round of financing will be announced in 2017 along with details of their manufacturing projects that utilize Carbon’s technology.
