Cloud Systems.

The emergence of cloud systems in the industrial and infrastructure sector is a reality. It is true that they are not used as much as they are advertised, but it is undeniable that, gradually, there are more and more projects integrating field or process data with these systems.

Currently, cloud systems are basically given two uses, monitoring and historization. The monitoring of cloud systems is significantly different from the monitoring used in process (HMIs, SCADAs or similar). It is more focused on seeing aggregated and contextualized variables displayed, usually in visual KPIs that are quick to understand. The great advantage of these systems over traditional ones is that, although they are less complete than those used at the field level, they are usually much easier to install, program, and give access to users. That makes them ideal solutions for management and direction to visualize what is of interest to them.

As for historization, these cloud solutions are optimized to store and work with large volumes of data. Therefore, cloud systems are largely used as large Historians. Not only that, what also makes these solutions have great value is that the environment itself allows you to apply artificial intelligence tools. In this way, these solutions are capable of generating applications for predictive maintenance, process optimization, resource management, or consumption prediction, for example.

What is clear is that for these solutions to be useful, they need large volumes of data from very diverse sources. And that is not easy. It is not easy because neither were these solutions designed to work with data from industrial environments nor are industrial applications designed to report data to these cloud systems. This can be seen in the protocols they use, working with many individual pieces of data instead of with databases, or the latencies with which procedures must be executed or new information displayed.

In that scenario is where OPC Router has great value. Its multiple communication add-ons and ease of use allow these cloud projects to be deployed, avoiding custom developments. Below, we explain different use cases where you will see how you can send data generated in your installation to different cloud solutions.

I Integration with Azure IoT HUB.

Example architecture: OPC/SQL plugin + MQTT plugin.

Azure is Microsoft’s cloud platform designed to receive information from – according to its website – billions of IoT devices.

In this technical note you can see the steps to follow to send information via MQTT to this platform with OPC Router. Thus, by following this guide, you can already connect your plant data (already in OPC format or stored in a database) with Azure.

I Integration with AWS IoT Core.

Example architecture: OPC/SQL plugin + MQTT plugin.

AWS IoT Core is Amazon’s solution for connecting devices to the cloud and working with that data.

For this platform, we also have a technical note to help you how to send your field data to AWS IoT with OPC Router. Similarly, the communication protocol we will use will be MQTT.

I Integration with Google IoT.

Example architecture: OPC/SQL plugin + MQTT plugin.

Today it is less known than Azure or AWS, but Google also has its own platform designed for the ingestion of large volumes of data for analysis.

Its way of introducing data is not very different from that of its competition, that is, using the MQTT protocol, as we can see in our guide for this solution.

I Integration with AVEVA Insight.

Example architecture: OPC/SQL plugin + MQTT/REST plugin.

AVEVA Insight is the cloud platform of AVEVA, the most recognized industrial software manufacturer – owner of brands such as Wonderware, OSISoft or InduSoft -.

In it, you can visualize different histories, GIS solutions, various KPIs and asset and maintenance management. In this case, this platform has native drivers to connect with the other AVEVA tools, but, in addition, we have the possibility of communicating via MQTT or REST to introduce data from other sources.

That is why we need OPC Router once more to assemble the complete solution. It is OPC Router who can be in charge of transforming and sending all the data that is in another format or protocol to MQTT or REST so that Insight can work with them.

I Integration with Ewon Flexy via Talk2M.

Example architecture: OPC/SQL plugin + REST plugin.

To finish this series, we will talk about Talk2M from Ewon. Talk2M is a cloud platform that any Ewon user who wishes can store the data that their routers of this brand obtain.

Without a doubt, Ewon is the most used industrial router at the Spanish and European level. Hundreds of OEMs use them to remotely access their thousands of machines deployed around the world. That is why Talk2M is a widely used cloud platform.

Unlike the previous systems, access to this service is done, as of today, only using the REST protocol.

As we mentioned at the beginning of the post, cloud systems are gradually gaining their space in industrial and infrastructure applications. Even so, they are all based on the data from the systems located in the installation. That is why OPC Router allows us to carry out all these initiatives in a scalable, secure, simple, standard and independent way from the origin of the data. If you are interested or want to know how to integrate your data into a cloud system with OPC Router, do not hesitate to contact us!

You can consult all the posts in this series:

https://www.comunicacionesindustrialeslogitek.com/opc-router-podemos-integrarlo-todo/

https://www.comunicacionesindustrialeslogitek.com/opc-router-podemos-integrarlo-todo-ii/

https://www.comunicacionesindustrialeslogitek.com/opc-router-podemos-integrarlo-todo-iii/

https://www.comunicacionesindustrialeslogitek.com/opc-router-podemos-integrarlo-todo-v/