More from the mobile app.

Update empowers operators and technicians with more visibility, awareness and customisation options regardless of location.

The mobile app for Emerson's DeltaV™ SaaS supervisory control and data acquisition (SCADA) software has been redesigned. The new app is to empower operators and technicians to do more in the field from their mobile devices, helping teams in critical industries like oil and gas, specialty chemical and others achieve more efficient, optimised operations.

“Today, many operators and technicians are using mobile devices as their primary interface to their SCADA systems,” said Dawn Marruchella, vice president of Emerson’s Guardian software and solutions business. “We’ve redesigned the DeltaV SaaS SCADA mobile app from the ground up with this in mind —delivering a more seamless, intuitive way for users to access all the key information they need, in the format they desire, from anywhere across their plant, facility, or enterprise.” 

Operators and field technicians increasingly rely on mobile applications for SCADA solutions to help them monitor and manage production on the go, manually input data, change settings and issue commands and simplify the work of recording chart estimates from anywhere across a plant or facility. However, today’s most efficient and effective teams need more robust mobile applications and a user-friendly interface to allow them to do more from anywhere. The redesigned mobile app for DeltaV SaaS SCADA is designed to give operators and technicians the control and clarity they need to be effective in the field, without the need to drag a laptop along with them.

The rebuilt DeltaV SaaS SCADA mobile app provides an entirely redesigned user interface (UI) for more intuitive viewing of critical operations information. Via the new UI, users can create and customise their own reports, allowing them to compare multiple sensors and locations to have better visibility into how operations are working in the field. The new UI also delivers alarms via push notifications, helping ensure operators and technicians are made aware of problems as quickly as possible.

Users also gain access to new route planning features. They can create and manage routes/runs on the fly directly from the mobile app, making it easier to customise runs to their specific schedules and daily plans. An operator or technician can view the stops on the route at any time to quickly see which are in alarm and can seamlessly pass location information directly to the mobile device’s mapping app to be guided to locations.

 DeltaV SaaS SCADA’s mobile app also features new widgets to simplify operation, making it easy for users to quickly see total alarms for selected locations and comparison of volumes produced.

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@EmersonExchange @Emerson_News @EMR_Automation @HHC_Lewis #PAuto #SCADA

The Cloud in OT.

The position paper, “Cloud Computing in OT Environments,” by the International Society of Automation (ISA), establishes a stance on when and how cloud technologies could be responsibly leveraged within operational technology (OT) systems. As OT and IT converge, this new paper provides guidance to help industry leaders navigate benefits, risks and implementation considerations for cloud adoption in automation.

The position paper emphasises that real-time, closed-loop control should remain at or near the physical process due to availability, reliability and latency requirements. At the same time, it highlights significant value for cloud enablement in appropriate OT applications, including improved data management, enhanced analytics, cost efficiency, scalability and better collaboration across distributed teams and sites.

Key application areas detailed in the paper include:

• Remote Operations: Cloud infrastructure can enable secure, robust, redundant operations and disaster recovery with system support in remote facilities.
• Predictive Maintenance: Machinery providers can apply advanced analytics such as vibration data processing to anticipate failures and reduce downtime and maintenance cost.
• Smart Manufacturing: Organisations can optimise supply chain operations from procurement and material planning to demand forecasting, inventory and logistics.
• Energy Management: Cloud computing can handle big data in smart grids, demand-side programs, building energy systems, energy hubs and dispatching.

The paper also outlines core challenges that distinguish OT environments from IT cloud migrations, including:

• Cybersecurity: Expanded attack surface and the need for defense-in-depth. Latency: Avoiding time-sensitive functions in the cloud. Reliability: Designing for loss of connectivity with proper on-site versus cloud allocation.
• Compatibility: Integrating legacy OT systems with modern cloud platforms.
• Culture and Change Management: Training teams accustomed to on-premise workflows.

“Cloud is not a one-size-fits-all solution for OT, but when applied to the right use cases, it can unlock meaningful improvements in resilience, insight and efficiency,” said Claire Fallon, executive director and CEO of ISA. “With this new position paper, ISA intends to advance the conversation around cloud computing and OT while upholding the safety, security and reliability that OT environments demand.”

As the leading developer of globally adopted automation standards, ISA provides the frameworks and competency programs needed to adopt cloud responsibly. The ISA/IEC 62443 series offers a comprehensive, flexible approach to industrial automation and control systems cybersecurity — foundational for any cloud strategy in OT environments. The ISASecure® certification program provides OT cybersecurity assurance by validating rigorous conformance of products and supplier practices to ISA/IEC 62443. ISA further supports the automation profession through education, certifications and alignment to the U.S. Department of Labor’s Automation Competency Model, ensuring today’s workforce can safely and effectively implement emerging technologies.

ISA’s latest position paper invites industry leaders, policymakers and academia to collaborate on standards development, education and workforce readiness to enable resilient cloud infrastructures that benefit the broader industrial ecosystem.

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@ISA_Automation @automation_com #PAuto 

High-performing, resilient, and efficient cloud infrastructure for industry recognised.

Seeq Corporation has achieved the Amazon Web Services (AWS) Manufacturing and Industrial Competency. This designation recognizes Seeq for its expertise in providing customers software solutions for an end-to-end Industrial Manufacturing Software toolchain.

As manufacturing customers move to the cloud, they are looking for cloud experts with manufacturing experience to help them transform and use data in new ways, knowing they need to move faster than ever. AWS Manufacturing and Industrial Competency Partners provide customers with solutions across their digital transformation journey while being assured that they have support from a validated AWS Partner to meet their needs. These solutions follow AWS best practices for building secure, high-performing, resilient, and efficient cloud infrastructure for industry applications.

Achieving the AWS Manufacturing and Industrial Competency differentiates Seeq as an AWS Partner Network (APN) member with demonstrated technical proficiency and proven customer success in running cloud solutions on AWS for the manufacturing and industrial sector. This program showcases manufacturing consulting and software partners who have domain knowledge and are providing cloud services. To receive the AWS Manufacturing and Industrial Competency designation, AWS Partners must undergo a rigorous technical validation and provide vetted customer references.

“Seeq is proud to achieve the AWS Manufacturing and Industrial Competency,” said Dr. Lisa Graham, CEO at Seeq. “By choosing Seeq on AWS, industrial organizations can easily access advanced analytics capabilities to improve production and business success.”

AWS is enabling scalable, flexible, and cost-effective solutions from startups to global enterprises. To support the seamless integration and deployment of these solutions, AWS established the AWS Competency Program to help customers identify AWS Partners with deep industry experience and expertise.

Seeq advanced analytics SaaS software is available in AWS Marketplace, enabling customers to rapidly find, share, and operationalize insights from process data stored on premise or in the cloud. Examples of use cases for process manufacturing customers using Seeq on AWS include asset monitoring with machine learning using the Seeq Solution for Amazon Lookout for Equipment, operational equipment effectiveness (OEE), and continuous manufacturing.

“Seeq is our go-to solution for self-service analytics in the Covestro Monitoring Platform,” says Bram Bamps, Data Analytics Expert at Covestro. “With little to no previous knowledge of advanced data scripting, our experts can easily use Seeq to create data-driven models that predict processes, even those with high variability, and with higher success rates than we’ve seen with conventional tools. They can easily share insights from these models with colleagues and scale out analyses efficiently by leveraging Seeq's relationship with AWS.”

Seeq on AWS can be procured in AWS Marketplace, which simplifies the procurement process and provides incentives for enterprise customers through the AWS Enterprise Discount Program. In addition, all AWS Marketplace sellers are verified as ‘ready-to-run’ on AWS, expediting the purchase process. This streamlined approach to technology deployment enables companies using Seeq to quickly and easily realize the benefits of advanced analytics.

In addition to AWS services, Seeq connects to an extensive set of data storage platforms from vendors including AspenTech, AVEVA, Siemens, GE, Honeywell, Inductive Automation, InfluxDB, Snowflake, and others.

@SeeqCorporation @awscloud @covestro #Manufacturing  

Machine learning support.

New Seeq Azure Add-on feature enables rapid deployment of Azure Machine Learning algorithms to frontline plant employees.

Additional integration support for Microsoft Azure Machine Learning has been announced by the Seeq Corporation. This new Azure Add-on, which was announced at Microsoft Ignite 2021, an annual conference for developers and IT professionals hosted by Microsoft, enables process manufacturing organizations to deploy machine learning models from Azure Machine Learning as Add-ons in Seeq Workbench. The result is machine learning algorithms and innovations developed by IT departments can be operationalized so frontline OT employees can enhance their decision making and improve production, sustainability indicators, and business outcomes.

Seeq customers include companies in the oil & gas, pharmaceutical, chemical, energy, mining, food and beverage, and other process industries. Investors in Seeq, which has raised over $100M (ca €87m) to date, include Insight Ventures, Saudi Aramco Energy Ventures, Altira Group, Chevron Technology Ventures, and Cisco Investments.

Their strategy for enabling machine learning innovations provides end users with access to algorithms from a variety of sources, including open source, third party and internal data science teams. With the new Azure Machine Learning integration, data science teams can develop models using Azure Machine Learning Studio and then publish them using the Seeq Azure Add-ons feature, available this week on GitHub. Using Seeq Workbench, frontline employees with domain expertise can easily access these models, validate them by overlaying near real-time operational data with the model results, and provide feedback to the data science team. This enables an iterative set of interactions between IT and OT employees, accelerating time to insight for both groups, while creating the continuous improvement loop necessary to sustain the full lifecycle of machine learning operations.

“Seeq and Azure Machine Learning are critical and complementary solutions for a successful machine learning model lifecycle,” says Megan Buntain, Director of Cloud Partnerships at Seeq. “By capitalizing on IT and OT users’ strengths, the Seeq Azure Add-on expands the Seeq experience and creates new opportunities for organizations to scale up model deployment and development.”

Along with increased access to machine learning models through this integration, Seeq’s self-service applications enable frontline employees to perform ad hoc analyses and use the models themselves, rather than rely on an IT team member for support. As the models yield results, Seeq empowers users to scale them across the organization to improve asset reliability, production monitoring, optimization, and sustainability.

In addition to launching the Azure integration, Seeq is also expanding its list of published open source algorithms this week with the addition of a new Seeq Add-on to GitHub for multivariate pattern search. Seeq’s open source gallery also includes algorithms and workflows for correlation and clustering analytics, which users can modify and improve based on their own needs.

@SeeqCorporation @MS_Ignite #PAuto #Manufaturing

A smart collaboration.

Copa-Data is inviting plant managers and engineers to register for its upcoming webinar ‘Smart Factory solutions with Copa-Data and Microsoft Azure’. The webinar, created in collaboration with Microsoft, will be held on 7 December 2017 at 10am. Participants are invited to register for the free smart factory webinar in advance via the COPA-DATA website.

zenon, their industrial automation software, provides seamless integration with Microsoft’s Azure cloud platform. In fact, the company was named 2017 Microsoft Partner of the Year in the ’Internet of Things’ category. The webinar will be hosted by Lee Sullivan, Regional Manager at Copa-Data UK and expert in zenon implementation. Sullivan will discuss how ambitions of a smart factory can be made a reality by combining zenon and Microsoft Azure.

The webinar is recommended for existing zenon customers, plant managers and engineers curious about the potential of the software for smart factory implementation. It will explain how manufacturing intelligence, such as predictive analytics and preventative maintenance, can be easily achieved with the collaboration of these two systems.

“Storing manufacturing data in the cloud allows organisations to access their information anywhere at any time — which means that they don’t need to eat away at their own infrastructure,” explained Lee Sullivan. “That said, the integration of Azure and zenon can provide a greater benefit than simply saving on-premises storage.

“In the webinar on December 7, we will demonstrate how effective supply chain management, global benchmarking and real-time key performance indicator (KPI) calculations can be put into practice using the combination of this technology.”

• Copa-Data has been an active member of the Microsoft Partner Network since 2005. Its software, zenon, is based on Microsoft’s latest technology, so data collected by the system can be easily integrated into the Azure cloud platform.

@copadata  #PAuto @Azure

Remote management solution rebranded!

HMS Industrial Networks now offer the Netbiter Remote Management solution under the newly acquired brand name eWON®. Alongside eWON Cosy and Flexy, Netbiter will be one of the three main product lines within the eWON Remote Solutions offering.

Further to the rebranding, all the elements of Netbiter (gateways, Argos cloud service etc) get an updated eWON look but from a technical point of view, the Netbiter solution itself remains unchanged, providing users with an out-of-the-box solution for remote management of field equipment.

With Netbiter as part of eWON Remote Solutions, HMS is able to present a complete offering for remote access, data and management of industrial equipment:

• Remote Access with Cosy, an industrial VPN router providing a fast and easy way to open a remote tunnel to do remote commissioning and programming of PLCs.
• Remote Data with Flexy, a modular and flexible router which can be customized for remote access and data collection.
• Remote Management with Netbiter, an out-of-the-box solution for remote management of field equipment.

“The Netbiter Remote Management solution has been growing rapidly in the last few years with a sales increase of 57% in the first half of 2016....We see a steadily growing demand for remote solutions in the marketplace, which is also the reason why we acquired eWON earlier this year," says Staffan Dahlström, CEO of HMS Industrial Networks. "eWON is a very well-known brand within remote access and remote data, featuring Cosy and Flexy respectively, and with the addition of Netbiter Remote Management, we have a very strong and complete remote solutions offering.”

@ewonrouters #Pauto @HMSAnybus

IIoT through the FOG!

Yokogawa Electric Corporation has invested in FogHorn Systems, Inc., a Silicon Valley startup that is a leading developer of fog computing technology. Yokogawa aims to foster development of fog computing technology through its investment in this company. In so doing, Yokogawa hopes to expand the range of solutions that it provides.

Fog computing An architectural concept for the realization of edge intelligence and the suppression of communications with the cloud by establishing a ‘fog’ distributed computing layer between the cloud and devices in the field. Fog computing eliminates communications delays and fluctuations by locating the processing of certain data near the field devices that generate the data and sending only essential information to the cloud. As such, there are high expectations that this technology will lead to a number of new IoT applications.

Due to the continued growth of cloud computing services and the huge number of devices that have access to cloud resources, there is a growing concern over issues such as network congestion and data processing delays. Fog computing (see box) is gaining traction as a technology solution to this problem.

FogHorn Systems, a pioneer in the development of software for fog computing applications with outstanding expertise in this field, has attracted the interest of various companies that are promoting IoT. Led by March Capital and GE Ventures, the company has succeeded in raising $12 million in funding from multiple investors, including Yokogawa, Robert Bosch Venture Capital GmbH, and Darling Ventures. There is also a group of investors who invested in the company prior to this round of fundraising. Yokogawa’s stake in the company is worth $900,000.

Yokogawa offers a wide range of control solutions that help its customers improve the safety and efficiency of their operations and make the most effective use of their assets. These solutions include field instruments, control systems, manufacturing execution systems (MES), and management information systems. Industrial IoT (IIoT) technology is making rapid inroads in the control field, and it is expected that fog computing’s enablement of real-time and distributed processing in edge computing applications will significantly accelerate its adoption.

Through this investment in FogHorn Systems, Yokogawa will gain access to the latest fog computing technologies and will also make available its knowledge and expertise in process control and plant operations that will help this company further refine its fog computing technology. Yokogawa aims to make use of fog computing to strengthen the solutions that it provides.

Yokogawa has drawn up a long-term business framework and formulated a vision statement that reads, through ‘Process Co-Innovation,’ Yokogawa creates new value with our clients for a brighter future. ‘Process Co-Innovation’ is a concept for an automation business that will utilize all of Yokogawa’s measurement, control and information technologies. Accordingly, Yokogawa will seek not only to optimize production processes but also the flow of material and information within and between companies, including their value and supply chains. Yokogawa is committed to working with customers to create value through the effective use of IIoT, a key to ‘Process Co-Innovation.’

Tsuyoshi Abe, Yokogawa vice president and head of the company’s Marketing Headquarters, said of this investment: “Highly reliable and stable communications are an essential requirement in manufacturing and many other fields. Fog computing is a breakthrough that helps to enhance the use of cloud resources. It is also expected to provide Yokogawa many more opportunities to utilize IIoT in its control business. In line with our corporate brand slogan of ‘Co-innovating tomorrow,’ Yokogawa will use FogHorn’s technology to develop new solutions and create new value in collaboration with its customers and partners.”

@YokogawaIA  #PAuto #IoT

Open modular architecture for industrial #cloud computing.

AdLink Technology has introduced Modular Industrial Cloud Architecture (MICA). This new industrial IOT architecture for commercial off-the-shelf (COTS) platforms features a design aimed at optimizing performance, cost and space requirements for the next generation of industrial IOT solutions.

The MICA industrial-grade platform is designed to support the native virtualization requirements for software-defined networking (SDN) and network function virtualization (NFV), while integrating a wide range of the latest hardware acceleration technologies to boost the processing of network packets and video streams. All this functionality is offered on an open, modular computing architecture, allowing users to redefine resource allocation for cloud computing applications.

The strategy behind MICA platforms is to introduce the latest data center technology to industrial telecom computing. The MICA name implies the main characteristics of the platform: modular design, industrial carrier-grade features, and cloud-oriented design.

The MICA platform is an Application Ready Intelligent Platform (ARIP) for industrial cloud computing. It supports AdLink’s PacketManager, network traffic management software that accelerates and enriches packet processing capabilities on telecom, networking, and security equipment. It also supports the company's MediaManager software, designed to provide the fastest possible performance for video editing and processing, media conversion, streaming, playback, and video conferencing.

“ADLINK intends to build a versatile industry ecosystem based on this open architecture. We hope to establish a foundation for industrial cloud computing that allows more industry partners to collaborate and innovate,” said Yong Luo, General Manager of ADLINK's Embedded Computing Product Segment.

MICA adopts an innovative modular design for upgraded scalability and flexibility. Customers can choose from different functional modules (compute, switch, storage, and IO modules) depending on their specific application requirements to build a highly tailored computing platform. The hybrid design allows customers to mix and match between 1/4 and 1/2-width slot compute nodes in order to scale the number of independent systems with different processing capacities in the platform, as needed.

MICA adopts industrial-grade design for higher density, rich I/O capacity, PCIe backplane throughput, and lower latency. All modules offer redundancy and hot-plugging. In addition, IO modules support advanced LAN bypass features, and – in order to meet the high bandwidth requirements of future 5G networks – each computing module is designed to support dual 64G bandwidth, with even higher bandwidth support available through expansion IO cards.

MICA is designed for industrial cloud computing with native virtualization for SDN/NFV. For SDN, MICA switch modules use larger TCAM tables to implement L2/L3/L4 fast packet forwarding using OpenFlow. For NFV, MICA switch modules and network cards support hardware-accelerated processing for NVGRE and VXLAN tunnel protocols. MICA designs also integrate a wide range of the latest hardware acceleration technologies to boost the processing of network packets and video streams.

AdLink’s MICA is a delivery system for the latest telecom, networking security, and intelligent video surveillance services. The platform offers a complete solution, with optimized stacks, high throughput, and an expanding partner ecosystem for mix-and-match hardware and software

configurations. MICA provides computing modules based on Intel® Core™/Xeon® and other processor-based boards, switch modules, storage modules and IO modules, and can be easily customized and scaled based on customer needs. MICA platforms provide variety of rack-mount form factors, like 2U, 4U and many others, truly scalable from rack mount to rack scale, enabling different computing capacity for different stages of a project.

 @ADLINKTech_usa  #IoT #PAuto

Software Suite maximizes business value with analytic capabilities & access to the Cloud

The new Proficy Monitoring & Analysis software suite, the industry’s first integrated solution for industrial big data management and analytics has been anounced by GE Intelligent Platforms. It allows companies to manage equipment and process data to maximize performance with advanced products that capture, store, contextualize and analyze data and presents actionable insights for fast and effective decision making. 

The suite is comprised of six integrated products: Proficy Historian, GE’s flagship data collection software; Proficy Historian Analysis for data mining and visualization; Proficy SmartSignal for predictive analytics for condition-based monitoring; and Proficy CSense to troubleshoot process problems, monitor process health and create close loop process optimization. Two additional products are new to the offering and include Proficy Historian HD that allows storage of massively large data sets in a Hadoop cluster, and Proficy Knowledge Center, a console that ties the solution together with process visibility, asset health assessment and process optimization.

GE’s Proficy Historian HD is the first solution to combine industrial data and analytics with elastic capacity creating a Big Data solution built on Hadoop; the first step toward GE’s vision for the Industrial Internet. The software facilitates advanced analytics on industrial big data to improve process performance, troubleshoot process problems, and predict and prevent asset failures. Built collaboratively with GE’s Software Center of Excellence, Historian HD enables users to bring together an entire set of historical time-series data while reducing data storage costs by as much as 85%. 

“GE manages 5 TB of new time-series data per day,” said Brian Courtney, General Manager of GE Intelligent Platforms’ Industrial Data Intelligence Software group. “Our experience in big data and analytics that maximize equipment and process performance mitigates the risk for other companies.

“We use the software ourselves in our own Monitoring & Diagnostics centers to manage trillions of dollars in asset value,” he continued. “Today, in the GE Industrial Performance and Reliabilty Center, GE engineers monitor thousands of mission critical assets for our customers to ensure uptime, asset reliability overall production throughput."

Another new part of the suite is Proficy Knowledge Center, a model-driven, browser-based visualization application. Tightly coupling an asset data model with historical time-series data, Proficy Knowledge Center supports unified views of process health and equipment health for increasing productivity and decision making. The solution builds on Proficy Historian to efficiently store and display immense amounts of time-series data. Results of data analyzed by Proficy CSense or Proficy SmartSignal are then visualized through the Knowledge Center in model context making it easy to navigate and understand.

The Proficy Monitoring & Analysis software suite can be used remotely to monitor one plant or all of a company’s global operations. As a result, it provides information to increase equipment availability and reduce unplanned downtime, improve yield and reduce variability, and reduce maintenance costs and inventory. The Proficy Monitoring & Analysis suite provides four essential capabilities: 

Improved data management: The platform can manage and aggregate all time-series data and process data for authorized personnel anywhere with access to a web browser. Tremendous volumes of real-time data can be collected, archived, and distributed at extremely high speeds and low storage costs—in the Cloud. More data over longer periods of time can allow for advanced analysis and greater insight into actual versus optimal equipment and process performance—leading to a competitive advantage. 

Improved asset health: Using advanced predictive analytics and diagnostics, companies can monitor all critical assets automatically and continuously, 24 hours/day. The software “learns” normal asset behavior and detects variances to provide early warnings of impending problems, with diagnoses of equipment and process failures and prioritizations based on severity. Early warning reduces catastrophic equipment failure and enables proactive versus costly reactive maintenance. 

Process optimization: The software also optimizes processes with advanced analytics that identify unknown correlations in process variables that can lead to sub-optimal performance. It allows for what-if analysis to find solutions that optimize processes—at the same time optimizing for asset health. Process optimization increases yield, while reducing variability. 

Data visualization: The suite features web-based reporting to deliver role- and asset-based information that unlocks the value of the data in context to the right person at the right time. 

“This Proficy software suite allows a company to move from reactive to proactive. It allows them to start small and scale to massive based on their needs. And, it allows them to leverage local systems and cloud solutions - all from the same product suite.” concluded Courtney.

Alliance to aid cloud development!

Company works with Microsoft to deliver cloud-based manufacturing solutions

Invensys Operations Management has announced an alliance with Microsoft Corp. for migrating some Invensys applications to the Windows Azure cloud. By bringing together industrial thought and technology leaders, the alliance expands the company’s continuing relationship with Microsoft and will afford end users cloud-based offerings in the manufacturing and infrastructure operations space.

“As Microsoft’s Alliance ISV Industry Partner of the Year in 2011, we are excited to enter into this alliance, which further defines our position as a leading provider of automation solutions that help optimise manufacturing business operations in real time,” said Ravi Gopinath, president, Invensys Operations Management’s software business. “Working with Microsoft reinforces the strategic alignment between our two companies, with a mutual goal of using Windows Azure technology to bring leading-edge cloud solutions to the industrial market. By offering cloud-based variants of our existing Historian and business process management solutions, we can help our customers lower costs, reduce systems complexity and cut hardware and software investments, while creating a high-performance environment for more agile operations management.”

Within the alliance, Microsoft will help Invensys accelerate the development of its Wonderware® Historian and Workflow applications to enable them to run on the Windows Azure cloud. Initial development activities will extend existing Invensys solutions with managed history and reporting capabilities, as well as business process management on demand.

“Invensys is an example of how Microsoft continues to work with companies that use our platforms to build the solutions their manufacturing customers need to address the critical operating issues they face each and every day,” said Walid Abu-Hadba, corporate vice president, developer and platform evangelism, at Microsoft. “Providing cloud-based reporting and collaboration services allows these customers to pay for what they use, which means they can better scale and manage their technology deployment costs. It’s an attractive model for any customer that has widely distributed operations, limited IT resources or the need to rapidly scale. Customers will have the choice of different usage models, so they pay for only what they need.”

Control in the cloud!

The cloud-based Netbiter solution from HMS enables remote management of industrial applications

The Netbiter® remote management solution enables users to monitor and control machinery such as power generators, tanks, wind turbines, building applications and base stations from a standard web browser.

Remote access to industrial applications and cloud computing are hot topics today as more and more companies are looking to save time, energy and resources. With this in mind, HMS can now offer a remote management solution for industrial applications based on cloud technology.

How Netbiter works
The Netbiter remote management solution is unique since it is an all-in-one solution including communication gateways, secure hosting servers and a web user interface.

A Netbiter gateway connects to any type of remote equipment, usually via the Modbus protocol. The Netbiter sends information via the Internet or a secure GSM/GPRS connection which requires no VPN or static IP addresses.

By accessing the Netbiter ArgosTM data center at www.netbiter.net, users can monitor parameters such as temperatures, statuses and levels from a regular web browser. It is also possible to start or stop equipment such as power generators remotely.

Typical users and applications
The Netbiter solution can be used by anyone wanting to monitor and control equipment remotely. Early adopters use Netbiter to monitor power generators, water/wastewater plants, tanks, building/HVAC installations, telecom base stations and renewable energy. By getting real-time information about equipment in the field, users are able to gain better control and make substantial savings on service trips and machine maintenance.

"Netbiter is already a trusted and proven concept installed in more than 50 countries around the world. With the acquisition of the remaining shares in remote management specialist Intellicom earlier this year, we now put further focus on remote management within HMS and offer the Netbiter concept on a wider scale. With the backing of the HMS global team we can now offer state-of-the-art industrial solutions for remote management,” comments Staffan Dahlström, CEO at HMS Industrial Networks.

Technical highlights

• - The Netbiter gateway sends information via a secure Ethernet or GSM/GPRS connection eliminating the need for VPNs or static IP addresses.
• - The solution is configured in a web interface at www.netbiter.net without the need for any programming.
• - A dashboard tool makes it easy to create graphical displays with gauges and tables of the most important parameters in real time.
• - Historical data is stored on parallel servers in the Netbiter ArgosTM data center, making it easy to create reports and statistics regarding the equipment.

Cloud computing

ISA-France, the French section of the International Society of Automation, are holding a technical day on cloud computing: "Cloud Computing: Buzzword or change of paradigm".

This event is been organised in co-operation with SEE (Société de l'Electricité, de l'Electronique et des Technologies de l'Information et de la Communication). The day will be held in Paris on 13th October 2010. Program and registration form can be downloaded from ISA France website.

On this occasion, ISA-France has released 2 versions, one in French and the other in English, of their newsletter ISA Flash on the possible evolution of control systems incorporating an increasing reliance on "cloud computing". These maybe downloaded here: ISA Flash (En français) or ISA Flash (in English)