Industrial Internet of Things and Asset Performance Management As GE Digital Grows

Industrial Internet of Things and Asset Performance Management As GE Digital Grows

While checking emails walking the IMTS show floor, I found one announcing GE Digital announced acquisition of Meridium, a supplier of Asset Performance Management (APM) software. Leveraging the Industrial Internet of Things for asset performance has been GE’s goal from the beginning, so this one makes sense.

The goal of the combination includes providing a solution to customers that unifies real-time analytics with reliability-centered maintenance best practices. Meridium customers will gain access to GE’s deep domain expertise in real-time data management and advanced industrial analytics.

In July 2014, GE made an initial investment in Meridium for a 26 percent stake in the company. The total acquisition, inclusive of the original investment, was executed for an enterprise value of $495 million.

Leveraging the Predix platform, GE’s APM offering helps deliver on the promise of the Industrial Internet by enabling industrial companies to maximize the reliability and availability of their industrial assets, while minimizing operational cost and risk. APM powered by Predix combines GE’s broad expertise in advanced asset-centric analytics, industrial software and value-added services to offer a unique and complete solution, helping customers deliver targeted asset uptime and performance.

The addition of Meridium’s enterprise software solutions brings additional capabilities and processes focused on asset-centric industries – such as oil & gas, power and chemicals – that complement GE’s existing offerings. The combination of the companies’ technologies helps strengthen the connection between real-time asset performance and reliability-centered maintenance strategies and work processes.

“As we forge ahead in the Industrial Internet journey, APM is clearly the first application that can leverage the Predix platform to help industrial customers benefit from increased productivity,” said Bill Ruh, CEO, GE Digital. “With Meridium joining the GE Digital family, we can immediately complement our existing portfolio with the Meridium expertise in cognitive analytics, reliability centered maintenance, operational risk management and asset health, as well as intelligent asset strategies. Meridium also has a mature software development culture, which will help us enhance our bench of deep technology talent.”

“This move gives Meridium access to GE’s substantial industrial portfolio – and provides a deeper connection to core industrial businesses and GE’s depth of domain expertise in the Industrial Internet,” said Bonz Hart, Founder and CEO, Meridium. “We are excited to join GE Digital and expand Meridium’s capabilities into more industries.”

After GE’s initial investment in Meridium, this acquisition is a natural step in the relationship. As a key area GE Digital plans to expand rapidly on Predix, Meridium’s APM products are already integrated into the Predix platform. The transaction is complete.

Dell Technologies Powering the New Industrial Revolution

Dell Technologies Powering the New Industrial Revolution

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Powering the Next Industrial Revolution. I was attending a virtual press/analyst conference on Sept. 7. Michael Dell formally introduced Dell Technologies. Talk of the Next Industrial Revolution is the last thing I expected to hear, but it fits with the company’s moves into Industrial Internet of Things and the data storage and analytics that accompany the concept. That company, the result of the combination with EMC, includes the familiar Dell (PCs and so forth), Dell EMC, Dell Services, and several publicly traded companies including VMware.

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Dell also talked about the Internet of Everything along with the next Industrial Revolution and about how this new company changes the competitive landscape of the industry.

Why do we need to know?

I have been following Dell’s entry into the Industrial Internet of Things for almost a year now. It began with an intelligent gateway device introduced at last October’s Dell World. This device includes ports to bring sensor data into a local database with some analytic and visualization capabilities at the edge. It then can send the information to the cloud, to mobile or other visualization devices, and to other databases.

Dell has held a series of Think Tanks with technology providers and end users to explore how companies are using or are planning/preparing to use IIoT technologies to enhance their manufacturing businesses. This statement from the top of the organization certainly validates the effort. And the addition of EMC for even greater enterprise penetration should make the rest of the industry re-evaluate their positions.

Michael Dell’s Letter

Dell couldn’t contain his enthusiasm and superlatives while introducing this new powerhouse in computing, services, and enterprise. Here is the official letter:

Welcome to Dell Technologies, a unique family of businesses that provides the essential infrastructure for your organization to build its digital future, transform IT and protect your most important asset – information.

The largest parts of Dell Technologies will be very familiar to you. Our Client Solutions business, and our most well-known business, will continue to be known simply as Dell. Our Enterprise Solutions business, a real powerhouse in data center infrastructure, brings together the very best of Dell and EMC and will be known as Dell EMC. We have the services to provide strategic guidance and expertise to ensure you get the very best outcome from your investments, and we’re committed to providing you with unparalleled service and support.  With that in mind, for now, there will be no change to your support interactions, processes, resources or contacts.

The rest of our family – Pivotal, RSA, SecureWorks, Virtustream and VMware – will continue to keep their independent identities and retain their freedom to develop their own ecosystems. That’s part of our commitment to providing you with choice. Importantly, we’ll also align our capabilities where it makes strategic sense to deliver integrated solutions in the areas that matter most to your future.

We stand at the very beginning of the Internet of Everything, an intelligent world pulsing with processing power and connectivity. It’s been called the next Industrial Revolution and the next quantum leap in human progress. By 2031, the number of connected nodes and devices will grow from 8 billion to 200 billion or more, about 25 times the number of people on the planet. All of these will create massive new sources of information. Using that information, in real time, to provide better insights and to build a better world is the greatest opportunity of our generation.

Dell Technologies exists to make that opportunity a reality for you. We are facing a future of infinite possibility. You’re going to cure cancer. You’re going to feed and water the world. You’re going to create jobs, and hope and opportunities on a global scale. Now is the time to dream big, think big and do big. Let the transformation begin!

What resides in the three core businesses?

Client Solutions

– Our Client Solutions business consists of Dell’s Client Solutions Group, which retains the Dell brand. Our Client Solutions offerings include hardware, such as desktop PCs, notebooks, 2-in-1s and thin clients, software, including end-point security, and peripherals, such as monitors, printers and projectors, as well as third-party software and peripherals.

Infrastructure Solutions

– Under the Dell EMC brand, we have combined EMC’s Information Infrastructure business and Dell’s Enterprise Solutions Group to create our Infrastructure Solutions Group, which includes RSA and Virtustream. Dell EMC will enable our enterprise customers’ digital transformation through our trusted hybrid cloud and big-data solutions, built upon a modern data center infrastructure that incorporates industry- leading converged infrastructure, servers, storage, and cybersecurity technologies.

Dell EMC Services – Dell EMC Services is a trusted advisor to our customers and partners, providing strategic guidance, technology expertise, and outstanding execution to drive business outcomes quickly and effciently for enterprises of all sizes and for users at work or play. From consulting and technology deployment, to education, support and asset disposition, we offer the most complete portfolio of technology and fnancial services available, addressing the diverse needs of enterprise and consumer customers with choice, fexibility and scale. Our global team of more than 60,000 Dell EMC and partner service experts in more than 165 countries stand ready to help customers digitally transform and modernize their IT with world-class capabilities spanning hardware, software, solutions and IT operations.

Dream Big

Dell stated during his presentation, “Dreaming big is always what Dell is about.” Completion of this acquisition is certainly implementing a big dream.

Interoperability and the Development of JSON

Interoperability and the Development of JSON

Interoperability enables growth of an industry, innovation, and great benefits for users. We see it broadly in the Web and more specifically in industry with OPC. It is topic to which I return frequently. We can talk about all the components of the “Industrial Internet of Things” whether it be devices, databases, big data analytics, visualization, but without interoperability the IoT will be severely hampered.

Dave Winer developed outlining applications to help writers of prose and code organize their thoughts. He also developed RSS and knows something about interoperability and the politics of standards.

In this podcast, Winer talks with Allen Wirfs-Brock about how JSON came to be and the back story about how Tim Bray (a developer of XML) came to be interested in its evolution. “Along the way we get a lot of interesting tidbits about how JavaScript and JSON evolved,” says Winer.

Data is like air

This all reminded me of some previous blog posts about data wants to be free. Moira Gunn, host of TechNation, an NPR show and also a podcast, discussed this topic in her opening “Take Five” essay in that podcast. She said, “Like air, data just flows. The power of data lies in its being replicated over and over.” She was thinking about Google and the attempt to have your past eradicated. But the concept also works for us.

Interoperability

I was thinking about my thoughts voiced yesterday about the use of open technology. Arlen Nipper, co-developer of MQTT, likes to tout that his middleware powers the Internet of Things. He says this because MQTT is the backbone of Facebook Messenger.

Ah, there is my point about the use of open technologies. Messenger is a closed silo. Try to move your data. Try to use your data in another application. Try to text someone from another app to an address in Messenger. Nope. Can’t do anything. Facebook wants you captured completely within its silo.

What’s that old phrase? Buyer Beware?

Interoperability and the Development of JSON

Industrial Internet of Things Programming Updated

Programming the Industrial Internet of Things is getting interesting. After the Opto 22 news on REST and Node_RED along with the Inductive Automation conversation on using MQTT middleware and Sparkplug for data description, I’ve dived into these technologies.

These things are all standards and widely used. Some have been around for a little while. I’ve got to say that Node_RED is really cool. And as open source, it has a fantastic library of functions.

How used?

So, my next question is, “How are these used?”

And mainly I am comparing to OPC UA.

I have been in conversation with several people from the OPC Foundation. They  told me, “OPC UA is about multivendor secure reliable interoperability for data and information integration from the embedded world to the cloud.   It’s more than just a communication protocol for moving data between points a and b.”

Granted, OPC UA is based upon XML technology, not JSON. It is XMPP. There were probably many good reasons for using this at the time the specification for OPC UA was being designed. For one thing, it is secure. Build in. And security is a major point of discussion when you talk with OPC people.

But, let’s talk about the multivendor and interoperability issues. When data is described in OPC UA, any other OPC UA device knows what is in the information packet. That is a power that many vendors–but especially end users–were searching for. Interoperability is the method that many industries have used for growth and innovation. Think railroads or cargo containers, for example.

So, even though REST, Node_RED, JSON, MQTT, and Sparkplug are all in themselves open, I throw the ball back into their court.

Is the principal use of these technologies for tying proprietary applications and devices together so as to lock out competition? To what degree is there an industry movement to describe devices and information in an industry-wide manner such that an interoperability of devices may be obtained?

I suppose there is a side note that I hear from some quarters about using open technologies, but using them in such a way that a customer is locked into one system integrator. Although this does not look so complex as to lock a customer in, it’s a question I need to ask.

I guess as the ad says, “Inquiring minds want to know.”

Interoperability and the Development of JSON

Industrial Internet of Things Interoperability with OPC

This essay is third in a series on moving data on the Industrial Internet of Things. We’ll take a look at OPC UA.

First we looked at Opto 22’s new product that provides for RESTful APIs as a way to open up information to move from platform to platform. This is relatively simple and understood by almost all recent college graduates. This method does not model data, but it can move vast amounts of data.

MQTT is a transport technology providing a low bandwidth middleware. However, developers have recently added a data model, MQTT Sparkplug. MQTT is agnostic as to the message. You can move data from all manner of sources—including OPC—using this transport. People began thinking there should be a way to describe the message within this ecosystem.

The Grandfather of them all

I reached out to Tom Burke, president of the OPC Foundation, for more information about how OPC UA fits into this picture.

So what is OPC UA? “OPC UA is about multivendor secure reliable interoperability for data and information integration from the embedded world to the cloud.”

The key to OPC is interoperability. It allows clients from one supplier to import data from another. Many years ago, for example, I was in the Wonderware labs. They had PLCs from almost all known suppliers. In order for its HMI/SCADA software application to work, developers had to write drivers from every one of those PLCs. With OPC, they could communicate with every OPC-enabled PLC. And so could every other supplier. It opened competition, the very thing that customers want.

That was more than 20 years ago. Today there are over 4,200 vendors who have OPC products in the marketplace. Or, as Burke puts it, “The days are over where the end users are willing to pay for multivendor interoperability by developing custom Software Solutions to integrate products from multiple vendors together.”

The OPC UA working group has already developed a simple https interface for UA that will meet and exceed the needs of many applications.

The biggest value is the data modeling/semantics OPC UA provides, followed by the security mechanisms.

I received this from the OPC Foundation:

So for any IoT application, one should ask:

  1. How do you model/describe your data?
  2. How do you store your data?
  3. How do you authenticate?
  4. How do you encrypt?
  5. Where do you store your secrets?
  6. What do you use for transport?
  7. Who/what can you connect to?

 OPC UA can answer all these questions.

Choose wisely

So, you can see that there are several options. It really depends upon your data needs. OPC UA guarantees interoperability. REST and MQTT are standards in themselves, but as a user you’d have to ask your supplier if they using them in an open manner. It’s possible that they are using an open standard in a proprietary way that promotes additional system integration business.

It all sounds confusing on the surface. Like any project you’re beginning, be clear about expectations and specifications up front. And, of course, maybe a blend is just right for you.

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