by Gary Mintchell | Nov 1, 2019 | Internet of Things, Manufacturing IT, Uncategorized
Many engineers and programmers like open source projects combined with open APIs. Some open source catches on and quietly becomes widely used. Others languish. The Linux Foundation’s Edge project, especially EdgeX Foundry, keeps quietly growing. What are the odds that this becomes a widely used Internet of Things tool?
Today’s news in brief:
- EdgeX’s fifth release offers more scalable solutions to move data from devices to cloud, enterprise and on-premises applications
- The first LF Edge project to achieve Stage 3 ratification, EdgeX hits widespread adoption and production-level maturity
- EdgeX and LF Edge onsite at IoT Solutions World Congress with demos from Dell Technologies, Home Edge, IOTech and Project EVE
EdgeX Foundry, a project under the LF Edge umbrella organization within the Linux Foundation that aims to establish an open, interoperable framework for IoT edge computing independent of connectivity protocol, hardware, operating system, applications or cloud, announced the availability of its “Fuji” release. This release offers additional security and testing features on top of the production-ready “Edinburgh” release launched this spring.
“EdgeX Foundry has experienced significant momentum in developing an open IoT platform for edge-related applications and shows no signs of slowing down,” said Arpit Joshipura, general manager, Networking, Edge and IoT, the Linux Foundation. “As the only Stage 3 project under LF Edge, EdgeX Foundry is a clear example of how open collaboration is the key to an active community dedicated to creating an interoperable open source framework across IoT, Enterprise, Cloud and Telco Edge.”
Launched in April 2017, and now part of the LF Edge umbrella, EdgeX Foundry is an open source, loosely-coupled microservices framework that provides the choice to plug and play from a growing ecosystem of available third-party offerings or to augment proprietary innovations. With a focus on the IoT Edge, EdgeX simplifies the process to design, develop and deploy solutions across industrial, enterprise, and consumer applications. As a Stage 3 project under LF Edge, EdgeX is a self-sustaining cycle of development, maintenance, and long-term support. As an example of the rapidly accelerating use of the code, EdgeX hit a milestone of 1 million platform container downloads, which almost half of these took place in the last few months.
“The 1M container download isn’t our only milestone,” said Keith Steele, EdgeX Foundry chair of the Technical Steering Committee and LF Edge Governing Board member. “The development team has expanded with more than 150 active contributors globally and the partner ecosystem of complementary products and services continues to increase. As a result, we’re seeing more end-user case studies that range from energy and utilities, building automation, industrial process control and factory automation, smart cities, retail stores and distribution and health monitoring.”
The Fuji Release
As the fifth release in the EdgeX Foundry roadmap, Fuji offers significant enhancements to the Edinburgh 1.0 release, which launched in July, including:
- New and improved security features to include PKI infrastructure for token/key generation.
- Application services that now offer full replacement capability to the older export services provided with previous EdgeX releases. These application services offer more scalable and easier to use solutions to get data from the EdgeX framework to cloud, enterprise and on-premises applications.
- Example application services are provided with this release to allow users to quickly move data from EdgeX to the Azure and AWS IoT platforms.
- A new applications function Software Development Kit (SDK) also provides the EdgeX user community with the ability to create new and customized solutions on top of EdgeX – for example, allowing EdgeX to move edge data to legacy and non-standard environments.
- Unit test coverage is considerably increased (in some services by more than 200 percent) across EdgeX core and supporting microservices.
- New device service connectors to BLE, BACNet, IP camera, OPC UA, GPS, and REST device services.
- Choices for commercially-supported EdgeX device connectors are also starting to blossom with offerings for CANopen, PROFINET, Zigbee, and EtherCat available through EdgeX community members.
Inaugural EdgeX Open
The EdgeX Foundry community recently kicked off a series of hackathons, titled the EdgeX Open. More than 70 attendees participated in the first event on October 7- 8, 2019, in Chicago. Hosted by LF Edge and the Retail Industry Leader Association (RILA), and sponsored by Canonical, Dell Technologies, Deep Vision, Intel, IOTech, IoTium and Zededa, the event featured five teams that competed in retail use case categories. More details on the event, including the winning use case from Volteo, are available in this blog post.
The next hackathon will coincide with the Geneva release, targeted for Spring 2020. It will be centered on the Manufacturing vertical and held in a location in Europe.
by Gary Mintchell | Oct 17, 2019 | Security
If I would offer you an opportunity to spend $300 and make $50,000 right away with more to come and no additional expense, would you take it? What about downloading a cybersecurity hack for that much off the Dark Web and using it to steal a $50,000 car?
Such a possibility exists Etay Maor, Chief Security Officer of IntSights told me yesterday. His firm, a threat intelligence company focused on enabling enterprises to Defend Forward, released the firm’s new report, Under the Hood: Cybercriminals Exploit Automotive Industry’s Software Features. The report identifies the inherent cybersecurity risk and vulnerabilities manufacturers face as the industry matures through a radical transformation towards connectivity.
Car manufacturers offer more software features to consumers than ever before, and increasingly popular autonomous vehicles that require integrated software introduce security vulnerabilities. Widespread cloud connectivity and wireless technologies enhance vehicle functionality, safety, and reliability but expose cars to hacking exploits. In addition, the pressure to deliver products as fast as possible puts a big strain on the security capabilities of cars, manufacturing facilities, and automotive data.
The two main things that affect hackers’ motivation, regardless of their skills and knowledge are the cost effectiveness of the attack and the value of the information.
Vehicles usually have more complicated attack surfaces to penetrate compared to other options, i.e. attacks against banks or retail shops. That said, the automotive industry still has numerous attack vectors, just as any other industry: needs Phishing, credential leakages, leaked databases, open ports, and services, insider threats, brand security, and more.
Dark Web Forums
In the research, IntSights discovered online shops that sell car hacking tools that appear on the clear web and are easy to find. These online shops sell services that disconnect automobile immobilizers, as well as services that sell code grabbers and forums that give bad actors a complete tutorial on how to steal vehicles.
“The automotive manufacturing industry is wrought with issues, stemming from legacy systems that can’t be patched to the proliferation of vehicle connectivity and software as consumers demand more integration with personal devices and remote access,” said Maor. “A lack of adequate security controls and knowledge of threat vectors enables attackers to take advantage of easily acquired tools on the dark web to reap financial gain. Automakers need to have a constant pulse on dark web chatter, points of known exposure, and data for sale to mitigate risk.”
Top Vehicle Attack Vectors:
- Remote Keyless Systems
- Tire Pressure Monitoring Systems
- Software and Infotainment Applications
- GPS Spoofing
- Cellular Attacks
Other attack vectors explored include:
- CAN-BUS
- Attacking Can-BUS
- Remote Attack Vectors
- Car Applications
- Physical Attack Vectors
IntSights has “the industry’s only all-in-one external threat protection platform designed to neutralize cyberattacks outside the wire.” Its cyber reconnaissance capabilities enable continuous monitoring of an enterprise’s external digital profile across the clear, deep, and dark web to identify emerging threats and orchestrate proactive response.
by Gary Mintchell | Sep 25, 2019 | Data Management, Internet of Things, Manufacturing IT
DataOps—a phrase I had not heard before. Now I know. Last week while I was in California I ran into John Harrington, who along with other former Kepware leaders Tony Paine and Torey Penrod-Cambra, had left Kepware following its acquisition by PTC to found a new company in the DataOps for Industry market. The news he told me about went live yesterday. HighByte announced that its beta program for HighByte Intelligence Hub is now live. More than a dozen manufacturers, distributors, and system integrators from the United States, Europe, and Asia have already been accepted into the program and granted early access to the software in a exchange for their feedback.
Intelligence Hub
HighByte Intelligence Hub will be the company’s first product to market since incorporating in August 2018. HighByte launched the beta program as part of its Agile approach to software design and development. The aim of the program is to improve performance, features, functionality, and user experience of the product prior to its commercial launch later this year.
HighByte Intelligence Hub belongs to a new classification of software in the industrial market known as DataOps solutions. HighByte Intelligence Hub was developed to solve data integration and security problems for industrial businesses. It is the only solution on the market that combines edge operations, advanced data contextualization, and the ability to deliver secure, application-specific information. Other approaches are highly customized and require extensive scripting and manual manipulation, which cannot scale beyond initial requirements and are not viable solutions for long-term digital transformation.
“We recognized a major problem in the market,” said Tony Paine, Co-Founder & CEO of HighByte. “Industrial companies are drowning in data, but they are unable to use it. The data is in the wrong place; it is in the wrong format; it has no context; and it lacks consistency. We are looking to solve this problem with HighByte Intelligence Hub.”
The company’s R&D efforts have been fueled by two non-equity grants awarded by the Maine Technology Institute (MTI) in 2019. “We are excited to join HighByte on their journey to building a great product and a great company here in Maine,” said Lou Simms, Investment Officer at MTI. “HighByte was awarded these grants because of the experience and track record of their founding team, large addressable market, and ability to meet business and product milestones.”
To further accelerate product development and go-to-market activities, HighByte is actively raising a seed investment round. For more information, please contact [email protected].
Learn more about the HighByte founding team —All people I’ve know for many years in the data connectivity business.
Background
From Wikipedia: DataOps is an automated, process-oriented methodology, used by analytic and data teams, to improve the quality and reduce the cycle time of data analytics. While DataOps began as a set of best practices, it has now matured to become a new and independent approach to data analytics. DataOps applies to the entire data lifecycle from data preparation to reporting, and recognizes the interconnected nature of the data analytics team and information technology operations.
DataOps incorporates the Agile methodology to shorten the cycle time of analytics development in alignment with business goals.
DataOps is not tied to a particular technology, architecture, tool, language or framework. Tools that support DataOps promote collaboration, orchestration, quality, security, access and ease of use.
From Oracle, DataOps, or data operations, is the latest agile operations methodology to spring from the collective consciousness of IT and big data professionals. It focuses on cultivating data management practices and processes that improve the speed and accuracy of analytics, including data access, quality control, automation, integration, and, ultimately, model deployment and management.
At its core, DataOps is about aligning the way you manage your data with the goals you have for that data. If you want to, say, reduce your customer churn rate, you could leverage your customer data to build a recommendation engine that surfaces products that are relevant to your customers — which would keep them buying longer. But that’s only possible if your data science team has access to the data they need to build that system and the tools to deploy it, and can integrate it with your website, continually feed it new data, monitor performance, etc., an ongoing process that will likely include input from your engineering, IT, and business teams.
Conclusion
As we move further along the Digital Transformation path of leveraging digital data to its utmost, this looks to be a good tool in the utility belt.
by Gary Mintchell | Sep 24, 2019 | Asset Performance Management, Automation, Internet of Things, Operations Management
Everyone touts Digital Transformation lately. Emerson Automation has been patiently building a Digital Transformation practice through acquisition and development. Executives announced advances at this year’s edition of Emerson Global Users Exchange—my second stop of the Fall Conference Tour. I see Emerson pulling away from many of its automation peers becoming part of a select group of suppliers putting it all together (the others being Siemens, ABB, and Schneider Electric / AVEVA).
I’m going to run through some of the more significant announcements from the press conferences so far this week.
New Digital Transformation Organization
Emerson has established a dedicated organization focused on digital transformation technologies and programs. The Digital Transformation business brings together resources to help manufacturers develop and implement pragmatic digital transformation strategies that deliver industry-leading, or Top Quartile, performance. The $650+ million business combines existing expertise in consulting, project execution, smart sensor technologies, data management and analytics – all part of Emerson’s Plantweb digital ecosystem. The organization will help customers not only establish a clear vision for digital transformation, but also execute and realize measurable results at each step of their journey.
“In a space inundated by confusing promises, Emerson helps customers define and execute a practical and successful path to digital transformation,” said Lal Karsanbhai, executive president of Emerson’s Automation Solutions business. “With our new Digital Transformation business, we are strategically focused on guiding customers to the right strategy, helping them drive improved organizational alignment, and implementing programs that accelerate improved business performance.”
“The industry is at a critical point in the digital transformation journey,” said Stuart Harris, group president for Emerson’s new Digital Transformation business. “Many companies have a vision but struggle to implement practical solutions that deliver results and therefore they are getting frustrated. Other companies are solving specific problems, but not realizing value at scale across the enterprise. Emerson has the technology to provide practical solutions, and the experience to define the best practices and roadmap to help make a broad operational impact.”
Existing and new Emerson resources comprising the business include:
- Operational Certainty Consulting: facility and enterprise-level roadmap strategies and implementation to improve reliability, safety, production and energy utilization metrics
- Operational Analytics: the industry’s most comprehensive portfolio of predictive diagnostics and advanced analytics, providing insights on health and performance of operational assets
- Industry Solutions: deep, industry-specific expertise on solutions to drive key performance indicators
- Pervasive Sensing: the industry’s largest portfolio of smart, easy-to-deploy, connected devices, including wireless instruments
- Project Management: best practices, tools and resources to implement a digital transformation project with confidence
Comprehensive Operational Analytics Portfolio
Emerson’s portfolio of operational analytics focuses on the greatest source of value for industrial manufacturers – the production itself. Operational analytics with embedded domain knowledge can impact and improve performance of simple equipment, complex assets and process units, and entire production plants.
“We recommend addressing the high impact, known problems first,” Zornio said. “By using proven models that make analytics accessible to the personnel responsible for the performance of assets, our customers can act quickly to solve problems faster. For example, Emerson’s solutions can detect and address 80% of the equipment failure modes contributing to production loss in a plant in real-time.”
Additionally, Emerson’s enhanced portfolio includes machine learning and artificial intelligence that can be used to identify new discoveries and deepen insight to impact business performance. These tools provide perspective previously unattainable with traditional analytics.
“With our acquisition of KNet and its integration into our Plantweb Optics asset performance platform, Emerson can provide not only some of the most advanced machine learning and AI tools in the industry, but also the connection to people and workflows, which are critical to digital transformation success,” Zornio said.
Emerson’s portfolio now provides both pre-packaged analytics solutions as well as a complete analytics toolbox for users to develop their own applications. This portfolio is supported by Emerson’s Operational Certainty consulting practice and robust data management capabilities that provide a foundation for analytics success.
AMS Asset Monitor increases visibility and adds predictive analytics
AMS Asset Monitor edge analytics device digitalizes essential asset data and analytics for better operations performance and improved decision making. AMS Asset Monitor provides actionable insights into essential
assets that were previously monitored only with infrequent assessments. The new edge analytics device will connect with Emerson’s Plantweb Optics asset performance platform to provide key operations personnel with instant asset health details for operations and maintenance decision making.
Plants typically monitor the condition of essential assets such as pumps, fans, and heat exchangers only every 30 to 60 days. The longer the gap, the more likely that a defect goes undetected and results in an unexpected failure with significant impact on production, product quality, and plant efficiency. The new AMS Asset Monitor combines easy deployment, embedded logic-based analytics, and intuitive health scoring to make it easier for organizations to monitor and maintain essential assets. For instance, AMS Asset Monitor’s analytics and visualization can help plant personnel effectively plan maintenance during scheduled shutdowns and turnarounds and reduce or eliminate unplanned downtime.
Unlike typical analytics devices that send data to a historian or the cloud to be processed later, AMS Asset Monitor provides analytics at the edge, performing calculations at the device. This device-centered analytics capability reduces the time, complication, and expense of adding analytics to a plant’s assets. Each device collects data continuously and uses embedded logic to identify and diagnose common reliability issues. Individual issues such as imbalance, misalignment, bearing faults, lubrication issues, or fouling are consolidated into an overall asset health score. AMS Asset Monitor then communicates these health scores via a web browser or—when integrated with Plantweb Optics—through real-time persona-based alerts on mobile devices. Plantweb Optics also enables enterprise-wide visibility and expands edge analytics and digital intelligence throughout the organization, keeping personnel aware of essential asset health.
“Plants are always looking for more ways to improve profitability by increasing productivity. Just a percentage point or two in availability can equal millions of dollars per year or more,” said John Turner product manager for online prediction, Emerson. “The AMS Asset Monitor enables personnel across the plant to see the current health of essential assets along with suggested actions to improve asset health. This allows them to make informed decisions to maintain reliability, increase uptime and maximize productivity.”
The AMS Asset Monitor’s small footprint along with wired or wireless Ethernet connectivity make it simple to install. The edge device can support new applications by simply adding new logic-based analytics.
Industrial Wireless Network Solution
Emerson is partnering with Cisco to introduce a next-generation industrial wireless networking solution. The new Emerson Wireless 1410S Gateway with the Cisco Catalyst IW6300 Heavy Duty Series Access Point combines the latest in wireless technology with advanced WirelessHART sensor technology, delivering reliable and highly secure data, even in the harshest industrial environments.
“A secure connection that scales easily is the foundation for every successful IoT deployment.” said Liz Centoni, senior vice president and general manager, IoT at Cisco. “By using the power of the intent-based network, Cisco provides a secure, automated, rock solid infrastructure helping IT and operational teams work together to reduce complexity and improve safety.”
This next-gen wireless access point provides enhanced wi-fi bandwidth necessary for real-time safety monitoring, including Emerson’s Location Awareness and wireless video. These applications enhance personnel safety practices, improve plant security and help ensure environmental compliance. A reliable and fast connection between devices and people streamlines decision making by providing real-time analytics. It also enables a mobile workforce to virtually come together, collaborate and resolve critical issues in a timely manner.
“Products installed in industrial plants need to last for years, even decades,” said Bob Karschnia, vice president of wireless at Emerson. “This kind of longevity was a critical design and engineering requirement to ensure this new wireless access point was future-proofed to meet a rapidly evolving technology landscape.”
Personalized Digital Experience
Emerson‘s new personalized digital experience – MyEmerson–connects people and technology through streamlined work processes and better collaboration. With a MyEmerson online account, users can access digital tools to quickly engineer solutions, manage software and installed assets, access training, collaborate with experts, streamline procurement processes, and improve visibility into buying history and trends.
“Driven by our personal interaction with digital technology, customers have new expectations today about speed and access to information,” said Brad Budde, vice president of digital customer experience, Emerson
Automation Solutions. “Our customers still want access to human expertise, but now expect a great digital experience as well. Combining these two experiences to deliver information immediately and use it to solve problems faster is what drives new business value.”
Digital engineering tools help engineers collaborate, gain confidence in an evolving industry, and streamline time-consuming manual processes. With online sizing, selection, and configuration tools for measurement instrumentation, valves, actuators, fluid control, pneumatic and electrical solutions, engineers can confidently and accurately specify solutions for their unique requirements and process conditions. By employing
digital tools, engineers can configure instrumentation up to 93% faster, typically saving over 100 engineering hours annually.
For procurement professionals, MyEmerson includes access to online purchasing and supplier management resources. Once solutions are selected and configured by engineering counterparts, the information moves seamlessly to the procurement team – eliminating the need for manual handoffs and duplicate entry of model codes. Procurement personnel can then create requisition lists, generate quotes and automatically populate purchase orders. With greater visibility to order status and order history, procurement teams have access to the information they need to drive more efficient processes.
The MyEmerson development roadmap will centralize the management of software, hardware and workforce upskilling. With easier access to technical documentation, easier identification of device location, and the ability to initiate repair, replacement or service as needed, organizations gain maintenance and turnaround planning efficiencies. By moving from manual management of disparate software applications, updates and
licenses, users will be able to actively operate and maintain their software portfolio through a single-entry point. Both hardware and software records will be tightly integrated to relevant training, enabling trackable and accessible information in the same experience.
by Gary Mintchell | Aug 21, 2019 | Internet of Things
The Industrial Internet of Things by definition is all about connections. Connecting hundreds of devices which often have differing protocols is a huge challenge. In an attempt to facilitate IIoT deployments, ioTium has announced an alliance with Telit. The agreement allows Telit deviceWISE gateway technology on the ioTium Edge App Store for single-click deployment.
After wading through a couple of paragraphs of marketing generalities, I found the best explanation with this quote. “With the cooperation of Telit, customers can now rapidly connect different communications protocols like BACnet, OPC, Modbus or even proprietary protocols to various IoT cloud offerings such as Azure IoT, Siemens MindSphere or private cloud end points,” said Sri Rajagopal, CTO, ioTium. “All commissioning, data mapping, and contextualization can now be done remotely, dramatically reducing the time and cost of flying technicians and data scientists to the site to remediate in person.”
Then the obligatory quote from the partner. I’ve talked with Fred Yentz for many years about connecting data. Here’s his thought on this announcement. “Our alliance with ioTium establishes a best-in-class approach for digital connectivity in the industrial world,” said Fred Yentz, president Strategic Partnerships, Telit. “Together, we are providing industrial enterprise customers a secure, plug-and-play way to connect any machine to cloud-based applications to capitalize on the benefits of Industry 4.0.”
Solving this problem is mainly what the various platforms are attempting. I would be interested in hearing what is actually working out in the field. Comment or send me an email. Something is working, because engineers are doing this.
