American Instrumentation giant adopts Azure-based IIoT solution, for machine monitoring of 3000+ end-devices
The Challenges
Our client is developing a connected product, Enterprise Gateway (EG), which is a tool to process surveillance with 24/7 Data Logging and Monitoring. The tool acts as an IoT gateway to connect end devices installed across the manufacturing facilities using MQTT protocol. Until now, the client deployed the product on the end-customer’s on-premise server and any software update had to be done manually. There was no real-time visibility of data for the client & the end-customer to track & monitor measurement & control data including Temperature, Humidity, Dew point or Pressure. Also, there was an absence of a notification engine to alert end-customers in case of abnormal conditions.
A robust & scalable data management system was a major miss for the client, one that could help manage millions of data records collected from EGs. There were no Remote Asset management capabilities to keep a watch on the end-devices at pre-scheduled intervals. The existing product lacked scalability to handle more than 1 enterprise gateway per customer. To overcome all these challenges and offer better service to their customers, the client wanted a secure, reliable and scalable Cloud enabled IIoT platform that connects its Enterprise Gateways to the Cloud.
High-end, scalable Azure-based IoT solution for Remote Monitoring of Assets
Azure IoT Suite, Azure IoT Hub, SQL Server, Document DB, Azure Table Storage, Azure Apps Service
Our expertise across asset-intensive industries has helped build a high-end 'Industrial Internet of Things' solution for the client.
Using the Microsoft Azure IoT Suite, our IoT consulting team connected the client's Enterprise Gateways to cloud. The client's EGs ingest data coming-in from various connected end-devices to Azure IoT Hub. Using an IoT Hub provided better security in comparison to an on-premise version and enabled reliable secure bidirectional communication among the EGs. The data collected is then processed via Web Job and stored in Azure Table storage to enable real-time visibility of data. The EGs are registered individually with the IoT Hub and uses MQTT protocol for data ingestion.
This IIoT platform supports a robust data management system architecture to handle enormous volume of data coming-in from connected end-devices. Also, it hosts an automated email notifications engine that sends alerts on abnormal conditions regarding temperature threshold values, dead devices, device malfunctioning and many more specific events. The client’s customers can login to the web application hosted on Cloud through the secure single sign-on authentication to view the data stored in SQL Server.
Adopting the IIoT platform allows the client to connect over 100+ Enterprise Gateways to the Cloud, operate with data collection frequency of 1 min to an hr and house up-to 150 GB of data records for real-time data analysis.
Smart Data Management architecture diagram
Result
The IIoT platform allows the client to connect over 100+ Enterprise Gateways (EG) to the Cloud, where each EG can handle up to 30 end-devices. The platform operates with data collection frequency of 1min to an hr, and supports a robust data management system to house up-to 150 GB of data records per day, enabling real-time visibility of measurement & control data.
A Glimpse of the Web Application - IoT enabled Remote Monitoting Solution
