by Gary Mintchell | May 3, 2017 | Automation, Data Management, Networking, Operations Management, Security, Technology
OPC UA was everywhere in the Digital Factory and automation areas of Hannover Fair 2017. Not only was the expanded OPC Foundation stand busy, an “OPC Wall” at the Microsoft stand was constantly packed. Microsoft executives took attendees on a digital path using OPC UA from the factory to the Azure cloud.
Spokespeople pointed out that OPC UA was crucial to a solution that was open, secure, and agnostic. While waiting for the finalization of OPC UA pub/sub (publish / subscribe), they wrote a transport in JSON and AMQP to get there.
The OPC Foundation announced an open-source implementation of the OPC UA technology, available on GitHub to truly enable the OPC community successful adoption of OPC UA across all markets and all platforms.
Microsoft contributed a huge amount of lines of code to this open source effort.
OPC UA is the set of standards for multivendor multiplatform secure reliable interoperability for moving /information from the embedded world to the cloud. The testimonial to the standards is a complete reference implementation that is now been posted as an open-source implementation, replacing the original OPC Foundation .NET deliverables that were developed and maintained for the last 10 years.
The original OPC Foundation .NET OPC UA reference implementation has been available to OPC Foundation members and last year was provided as an open-source implementation on GitHub. This version was targeted and limited to Microsoft Windows only.
The new OPC Foundation reference stack, based on the new .NET Standard Library technology, was developed and optimized by Microsoft to serve as the complete platform-independent infrastructure, from the embedded world to the cloud. This new version is enabled on the following supported platforms: Various Linux distributions, iOS, Android, Windows 7, Windows 8, Windows 8.1, Windows 10, Windows Phone, HoloLens and the Azure cloud.
One of the important features of the .Net Standard stack is the expansion of the security features to meet the needs of the Industrial Internet of Things (IIoT) applications, as well as the requirements of “Plattform Industrie 4.0”.
Additional benefits of the OPC UA .Net Standard Stack include:
- The .Net Standard stack is cross platform specifically enabling OPC UA applications.
- The .Net Standard API portability strategy is all about developing once and running everywhere: No need to special-case OS-specific functionality.
- The architecture of the .Net Standard stack focuses on managed code, which translates to rapid application development.
- Microsoft deliberately enabled the creation of NuGet packages, which allows suppliers to quickly integrate OPC UA support into their application with a few simple clicks.
- The .Net Standard stack includes increased security inclusive of support for SHA512.
- The .Net Standard stack enable support for cross-platform UI design tools through Xamarin.
- Microsoft has provided, in conjunction with the OPC Foundation, an extremely rich set of sample applications, inclusive of reference clients, reference servers, an aggregation server, an OPC classic wrapper and a web application to quickly display OPC UA telemetry data sent to the cloud.
- Microsoft has also provided, in conjunction with the OPC Foundation complete samples demonstrating Azure connectivity leveraging the OPC UA publish/subscribe technology (the specification of which is currently being finalized).
Microsoft’s Sam George, Director of Microsoft Azure IoT said “OPC UA has truly established itself as the interoperability standard for Industrial IoT. We are honored to work with the OPC Foundation on the continued evolution of the standard. The response from the Industrial IoT community to our .Net Standard reference stack contribution has been very positive.”
OPC Foundation’s President Thomas J. Burke said, “The Microsoft commitment to open standards, and specifically to the OPC Foundation is absolutely amazing. Microsoft is clearly a pioneer and a leader in developing and bringing to market the best technology that truly enables multivendor information integration and interoperability. It has been a pleasure to work with the Microsoft development team, and how they are enabling so many of the suppliers to have seamless connectivity to the Azure cloud, through their development and commitment providing an open-source implementation of the OPC UA technology”.
Stefan Hoppe, OPC Foundation’s Vice President said, “Microsoft is the strongest open-source contributor to the OPC Foundation’s industrial interoperability standard, OPC UA. Microsoft’s integration of the OPC UA code with Microsoft Azure IoT as well as Windows IoT allows companies to bring millions of devices and apps to the public cloud and manage them with one single application, no matter if the devices run on Windows, Linux, iOS or Android. Using this OPC UA implementation, IT and Manufacturing will merge seamlessly”.
Siemens’ Thomas Hahn said: “As a founding member, Siemens has supported the OPC Foundation for years. For us, open connectivity – from shop floor to the cloud – is a must. We therefore appreciate the availability of OPC UA technology as open source!”
The OPC Foundation will continue to develop, maintain and extend this new .NET technology as the new OPC Foundation endorsed open-source .NET reference implementation. Some of these significant new features to be added include the publish/subscribe extensions as well as support for important IoT protocols like AMQP and MQTT.
by Gary Mintchell | Dec 2, 2016 | Automation, Internet of Things, News, Technology
Schneider Electric announced launch of what CTO Prith Banerjee called a major advance for its Internet of Things (IoT) architecture and strategy. I’ve had a bit of a problem wrapping my head around the announcement. That is because this is not a product announcement. It’s more of a strategy announcement.
At the end of Banerjee’s 45-minute presentation, he began talking about putting the elements together with APIs (application program interfaces) that describe how the components work together.
The platform describes five application areas and four vertical industries. These are safety, reliability, efficiency, sustainability, and connectivity applications, and building, grid, industry, and data center markets.
Prominent were partners Microsoft and Intel along with many others noted briefly. The platform is build atop Microsoft Azure—not surprising since Microsoft seems to have captured the manufacturing/industrial market. The intel part os for its FPGA technology used in smart devices.
“EcoStruxure combines our history in pioneering in automation, energy management and deep domain expertise with data-driven metrics and analytics to help us maximize the value of the Internet of Things for our customers,” said Dr. Prith Banerjee, Chief Technology Officer, Schneider Electric. “EcoStruxure gives our customers the platform, architecture and roadmap to quickly and easily implement IoT in an enterprise, extending the benefits of IoT beyond the device layer to create a more intelligent, efficient and secure operation.”
The first layer builds on Schneider Electric’s core competency in developing connected products with embedded intelligence, such as sensors, medium and low voltage breakers, drives and actuators.
The Edge Control layer gives organizations the critical capability to manage their operations on-premise as well as from the cloud depending on their needs. This includes connected control platforms with remote access, advanced automation and operator override capabilities. Local control and firewall protection is included to maximize the benefits especially for mission-critical applications.
Schneider Electric’s focused investment in R&D and product development in the critical areas of software, analytics and services, coupled with the integration of recent acquisitions such as Invensys, Telvent and Summit Energy forms the third layer of the stack – a portfolio of apps, analytics and services. EcoStruxure enables the most extensive breadth of vendor-agnostic apps, analytics and services on open IP protocols in order to work with any hardware, system, or control.
The last “layer” includes a set of core reference architectures. The architectures build on the company’s deep domain expertise and portfolio and are tested, validated and tailored for its core end markets of Buildings, Grid, Industry and Data Centers, with even more specific architectures also available for industrial plants, industrial machines, and power distribution. The architectures give customers access to documented and standardized system reference designs that can be used in the implementation of interoperable, sustainable, efficient and connected systems.
These announcements follow the trends described here and by most analysts. The Industrial Internet of Things builds up from smart devices (things) connected (Internet) to each other and to various gateways, databases, the cloud, with analytics performed at various stops along the way and finally displayed as actionable information on some sort of desktop or mobile device. Common with the industry at large, Schneider Electric builds upon Microsoft Azure.
The omissions I found striking were mention of EtherNet/IP (Schneider is an ODVA member) and OPC UA—two connectivity technologies. Probably doesn’t mean anything, but noticeable by absence.
by Gary Mintchell | Oct 28, 2016 | Automation, Internet of Things, News, Operations Management
Emerson Automation (formerly Emerson Process Management) is the latest automation company to thoroughly exploit the Industrial Internet of Things as it unveiled its digital strategy and reinvigorated Plantweb architecture at Global Users Exchange 2016.
Microsoft continues its deep penetration into industrial and manufacturing automation markets with a renewed commitment from Emerson. The companies announced at Exchange the Plantweb digital ecosystem and Connected Services are powered by Microsoft Azure IoT Suite.
Emerson is also broadly adopting Microsoft’s Windows 10 IoT technology both in its DeltaV and Ovation control systems and in data gateways.
First introduced as the industry’s most advanced process control and safety network, Plantweb now harnesses the power of Industrial IoT to expand digital intelligence to the entire manufacturing enterprise, while also providing an architecture for on-premise applications. Plantweb provides a comprehensive framework to help manufacturers achieve Top Quartile performance in the areas of safety, reliability, production and energy. Top Quartile is defined as achieving operations and capital performance in the top 25 percent of peer companies.
“In 1997, Emerson revolutionized the automation landscape with Plantweb, the first field-based digital plant architecture,” said Peter Zornio, chief strategic officer, Emerson Automation Solutions. “Now, we are doing it again by harnessing the power of Industrial IoT to give customers the technology foundation for Operational Certainty.”
The pieces comprising Plantweb (see diagram) include (from the bottom of the stack): Pervasive Sensing; Secure First Mile; Insight; Advisor; Always Mobile; and, Connected Services. I’ll discuss a little of each of these below. Many are build outs of existing products and technologies, some are new products or services.
Pervasive Sensing
Emerson’s Pervasive Sensing Strategies expand the use of sensor and analytics technology into new operational performance areas through a new generation of low-cost sensors that are easy to install and maintain, take advantage of wireless communications as part of a secure, integrated industrial network and use new analytic algorithms to create insights into the performance of a plant’s assets.
Emerson’s expanding portfolio of pervasive sensing technologies includes capabilities in the areas of hazardous gas sensing, wireless corrosion monitoring, wireless medium voltage equipment monitoring, wireless gas monitoring, wireless non-intrusive surface-sensing temperature measurement, wireless power metering and pressure gauge measurement.
Wireless corrosion monitoring
Emerson’s Permasense Wireless Corrosion Monitoring is a permanently-installed technology that uses unique sensor technology, wireless data delivery and advanced analytics to continuously monitor for metal loss from corrosion or erosion in pipes, pipelines or vessels.
Designed to operate without maintenance for years, this monitoring technology reliably delivers high-integrity data even in the harshest environments, providing ongoing visibility of corrosion and erosion trends in real-time and direct to the engineer.
Wireless medium voltage equipment monitoring
Emerson’s IntelliSAW wireless medium voltage equipment monitoring systems offer real-time, continuous monitoring of electric power switchgear temperatures and smart grid monitoring, providing accurate temperature data for key points in a power transmission network.
Wireless gas monitoring
Emerson’s Rosemount 928 Wireless Gas Monitor is the world’s first integrated WirelessHART toxic gas detection solution. Maintaining remote sites like wellheads and natural gas metering stations is difficult and dangerous because workers approaching these sites may be exposed to unplanned releases of toxic gas. Due to the prohibitive costs to install and operate conventional gas detection systems at these sites, operators have been forced to rely on portable gas detection devices or, even worse, carry on with no gas detection at all. In all these cases, workers may run the risk of exposure when approaching these remote sites to perform maintenance.
Wireless non-intrusive surface-sensing temperature measurement
Emerson’s Rosemount X-well Technology is a surface-sensing temperature measurement solution that eliminates the need for thermowell process penetration when measuring process temperatures in pipe applications and removes leak points to reduce compliance costs and increase safety. X-well technology eliminates the need to drill device connections to get process temperatures, allowing users to avoid the risk of corrosion.
Wireless power metering
The Emerson SensEnable 56WM wireless power meter is designed to monitor voltage, current, power, energy, and other electrical parameters on single and three phase electrical systems with revenue-grade accuracy. The power meter delivers early detection of machine problems through continuous measurement of power consumption and power quality of submeters. Submeters are physical metering devices that monitor electricity, gas, water, steam, and other utilities.
Pressure gauge measurement
Emerson’s Rosemount Wireless Pressure Gauge delivers safer and more reliable readings, enabling remote collection of field data as frequently as once per minute. Accurate, wireless readings keep operators updated on changing field conditions remotely – reducing manual operator rounds and improving safety by keeping personnel out of hazardous areas and safeguarding against catastrophic events.
Secure First Mile
Emerson’s Secure First Mile is a set of architectural approaches and designs, enabled by a family of security services and robust, secure and flexible servers, gateways, and data diodes that ensures that data in existing OT systems can be easily and securely connected to internet based applications.
Using Secure First Mile architectures, a plant can transform its operational technology data into information technology data while ensuring outbound paths of information do not become inbound paths that expose its systems to harm.
As part of its Secure First Mile architectures, Emerson is using OPC Unified Architecture (UA) servers to export data from application databases. OPC UA is an industrial machine-to-machine communication protocol that can be directly consumed by Microsoft Azure, Emerson’s chosen platform for cloud computing. Microsoft Azure enables the building, deployment and management of applications and services through a global network of Microsoft-managed data centers. Its integrated cloud services include analytics, computing, database, mobile, networking, storage and web applications.
To connect its field data aggregation products such as wireless sensor gateways, CHARM I/O cards, Ethernet I/O cards and RTUs, Emerson is using Windows10 IoT edge gateways. These gateways enable data to securely reach the Microsoft Azure cloud by translating operational technology protocols such as FOUNDATION fieldbus (FF) and HART to information technology protocols such as Advanced Message Queuing Protocol (AMQP) & MQ Telemetry Transport (MQTT). These gateways provide a high degree of security through data encryption and key management. In addition, as described, data diodes installed within the system act as physical barriers to incoming information, preventing outside access to a plant’s systems.
Insight
Emerson’s Plantweb Insight applications, which leverage Emerson’s Pervasive Sensing strategies, help users instantly make sense of plant data to drive overall enterprise profitability. It’s a single, lightweight, easy-to-install web-based platform that automatically and strategically interprets plant data through a scalable suite of applications.
Plantweb Insight features a user-friendly, intuitive interface capable of running on any device with access to a web browser (desktop computers, laptops, tablets and mobile phones). Pre-built analytics require minimal configuration, and its flexible software is operating system-independent, easily installing and integrating with existing infrastructures.
The power of Plantweb Insight resides in its collection of easy-to-deploy applications, each containing the embedded domain expertise and analytics that enable existing resources to immediately identify and resolve asset issues that historically were addressed by periodic, manual rounds or unexpected failures. These applications are designed to help users realize the most from Pervasive Sensing strategies at their sites.
More than a dozen total applications are scheduled for release, with each dedicated to a single, specific asset class. The first three applications are available now and future applications will be released at a rate of two per quarter.
Plantweb Insight is currently available with applications for steam trap monitoring, pump monitoring and pressure gauge monitoring.
Advisor
Emerson’s Plantweb Advisor Suite is a scalable set of software products offering two new applications, Health Advisor and Performance Advisor, in addition to the previously released Energy Advisor – all of which leverage the industry-standard OSIsoft Pi System’s highly scalable open data infrastructure that captures and shapes data generated by equipment.
“Together, Emerson and OSIsoft are creating a foundation for digital transformation,” said Martin Otterson, senior vice president of sales, marketing and partners at OSIsoft. “Through the combination of Plantweb Advisor Suite and the PI System, organizations will be able to rapidly achieve deep insights into their operations that in turn will help them boost productivity or develop new services.”These complementary applications are designed to boost operational performance by empowering a plant’s reliability, process and energy experts with critical information about equipment health and efficiency as well as energy consumption and emissions.
Using the Plantweb Advisor Suite, a plant’s essential assets are continuously monitored for potential problems with Health Advisor, operating efficiency of a plant’s equipment is tracked through Performance Advisor, and Energy Advisor maps and manages a plant’s energy consumption in real time.
Always Mobile
Always Mobile solutions deliver secure, instant access to critical information in intuitive views that prepare personnel at all levels to more effectively make business-critical decisions and operate their facilities.
AMS Asset View
AMS Asset View software is a dashboard and messaging application used to present asset health information on desktops, laptops, and mobile devices. An application connecting into the AMS ARES Platform, AMS Asset View’s persona-based views ensure that reliability personnel know the health of their assets in relevant time and always see the alerts they need to see, and only the alerts they need to see, so they can focus on asset conditions critical to production.
AMS Asset View focuses on delivering asset health status and alerts in relevant time, using a push alert mechanism to provide notifications that are pertinent to a user’s responsibilities and the criticality of an individual asset.
DeltaV Mobile
The new DeltaV Mobile application allows process engineers, operators, and plant managers to quickly and easily view personalized watch lists and receive real-time alarm notifications.
Collaborative features enable users to more efficiently diagnose and troubleshoot abnormal process situations—whether they are on site or in a remote location.
Guardian Mobile
Emerson announces Guardian Mobile, a mobile application delivering visibility of critical data for control, asset, machinery, and device monitoring systems. An element of Emerson’s Always Mobile, Guardian Mobile enables users to access their system health score for all associated systems from anywhere.
AMS Trex Device Communicator
The AMS Trex Device Communicator is a handheld communicator for advanced diagnostics, configuration, and troubleshooting in the field, designed to improve the efficiency of the many tasks performed by maintenance technicians.
The Trex communicator supports additional mobile applications, such as ValveLink Mobile, which allows technicians to configure and test valves inline, minimizing the impact on production.
Connected Services
Emerson Connected Services are bridging that gap by harnessing the Industrial IoT to help its customers maximize the health, reliability and performance of plant assets and processes through proactive, predictive analysis that delivers actionable data. A key component of Emerson’s Plantweb digital ecosystem, the service offers remote, continuous assessment of a plant’s equipment and processes by Emerson experts to empower customers with the information needed to improve efficiency and avoid unplanned downtime. Emerson Connected Services utilize Microsoft Azure cloud services and data analytic tools that provide a scalable and secure cloud application environment.
Emerson Connected Services offer support across four main subscription-based service offerings in which experts analyze data from critical equipment to provide actionable insights so customers can align their maintenance and operational responses with their business strategies. These offerings currently include Control Valve Connected Services, Steam Trap Connected Services, DeltaV System Health Connected Services, and Machinery Connected Services.
These new services are an integrated part of Emerson’s Lifecycle Services offerings, enabling Emerson to provide customers with more effective and efficient access to its experts. Rather than physically sending experts to inspect and analyze data from critical equipment on a customer’s site, Emerson is able to bring the data to the experts, wherever they are located, with secure connectivity and cloud services. For the most part, users are leveraging the existing infrastructure in their facility making it easy to start small and focused, and grow the service to deliver more business results.
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 | Jul 27, 2016 | Operations Management, Software
Linking manufacturing software with Microsoft Azure (not so surprising) and Office 365 (huh?) seems to be the new trend.
I wrote previously about GE Predix. People were curious if that was a statement about GE’s cloud. I thought maybe it was about linking to Office. Here is an announcement from Plex with a similar initiative.
[I’ve taken some vacation and am working on at least three intense projects. So my posts have slowed. Hopefully I pick it up soon.]
Here is the news about Plex.
Plex plus Microsoft
Plex Systems has announced an integration with Microsoft Corp. aimed at making it easy for companies to connect Microsoft’s desktop productivity applications to the Plex Manufacturing Cloud. Plex has also leveraged Microsoft’s Azure platform as the foundation for the Plex Developer Portal, the company’s new gateway for customers and partners using Plex’s growing portfolio of REST Application Program Interfaces (APIs).
The integration is part of Plex Connect, the company’s open integration framework that makes it easier for manufacturers to connect people, things and applications to the Plex Manufacturing Cloud.
Plex Connect: Microsoft Office 365
- The new Plex Workcenter Lookup app is now available on the Microsoft store.
- The app enables users to connect, view and analyze manufacturing data from Plex in Office 365, making it easier for business users to leverage that data for getting work done in the desktop applications they use every day.
- Built using Plex Connect REST APIs, the app enables real-time lookups, while maintaining role-based security for customer data.
- Leveraging Plex’s APIs, customers and partners can also create their own connections and applications to interact with the Plex Manufacturing Cloud in ways that support their unique business objectives.
Plex Connect: Developer Portal
- Plex also launched the company’s new developer portal, providing customers and partners with secure access to the company’s expanding portfolio of RESTful APIs.
- Leveraging Microsoft Azure, the Plex Developer Portal takes advantage of the platform’s scalability, tooling and managed services to support Plex customers’ growing requirements for enterprise connectivity.
- The Plex Developer Portal provides sample code, sandbox capabilities, documentation and other resources to help customers and partners build secure, robust connections between the Plex Manufacturing Cloud and third-party applications.
“Microsoft’s desktop productivity applications are fundamental to business, providing people and teams with flexible tools for running their day-to-day operations,” said Karl Ederle, group vice president, products at Plex Systems. “Our goal with Plex Connect is to make it easy for manufacturers to achieve a completely connected enterprise, with rich data always available to support business and customer objectives, whether through desktop applications or connections to other enterprise systems. The Azure platform is an ideal foundation for Plex Connect as we scale to meet the needs of global manufacturers.”
“Microsoft Office 365 and Plex Manufacturing Cloud are more valuable for our joint customers when we bring them together,” said Rob Howard, director, Office 365 Ecosystem, Microsoft. “The power to quickly pull real-time data from Plex’s manufacturing system of record directly into a tool like Excel enables professionals to use and analyze data in ways that support today’s most dynamic work environments.”
