Welcome to the next installment of our Data Storage Deep Dive series! For years, Software Toolbox has been synonymous with terms like “device connectivity” and “data integration” thanks to our variety of connectivity solutions that help collect real-time data for all your industrial automation operations. Beyond just real-time data, our team recognizes the value of historical data within the industry, and we aim to help businesses make larger data backed decisions over time.
This week, we'll meld these concepts together and demonstrate the seamless integration of our solutions into the Canary Data Historian platform and see firsthand how these tools can be utilized to collect and store both real-time and historical data, to help you get the most out of your data. Canary Labs is the developer of the Canary Data Historian platform. They have customers that have leveraged Software Toolbox’s expertise and products when implementing their applications. This demonstrates Software Toolbox’s commitment to work well with other suppliers and their clients, even when we did not provide the other software solutions. You’ll see what we call “the Software Toolbox Way” at work in this and future stories.
Data Collection - Industry Standards Empower Connectivity
Device connectivity and protocol support are crucial components of our product offerings. Whether it's TOP Server providing over 100 off-the-shelf drivers, OmniServer enabling no-code custom protocol integration for non-standard devices, or Cogent DataHub offering robust IoT integrations, we can interface with virtually any piece of hardware or software within your operations.
To centralize operational insights, we'll explore integrating three unique sources of live device information.
Control Device Integration
TOP Server’s extensive driver library allows for simultaneous connections to a variety of common automation & control devices from well-known and even some not so well-known suppliers. In a facility with specialized devices spread across different areas, TOP Server enables data collection through a single communication engine. It supports native interfaces like SuiteLink, OPC DA/UA, and more, managing client communications and mitigating the adverse effects of multiple clients directly connecting to hardware.
Over 24 years, we have installed TOP Server in many customer sites, and through those years, those customers’ automation systems have evolved between platforms. They have kept their TOP Server communications infrastructure in place though as they changed the client/data consumer applications. The use of open OPC standards made this possible, choosing the best technology and service for their needs, with Software Toolbox remaining a long-time trusted partner due to the way we support and service their needs.
For this discussion, and as we carry on through this blog series, we will be talking about a company that operates a multi-use facility collecting various tag information from evaporators and sensors, along with simulated data, using TOP Server.
Weigh Scale Integration Using OmniServer
In the same plant, Mettler Toledo scales are used to weigh product as it comes off the production line. These scales lack a common communication protocol like Modbus, and traditionally, data was captured manually by operators with the use of a proprietary screen. Using the visual editor within OmniServer, the device specific protocol was implemented without writing any code, allowing the direct integration of scale data into the HMI system, a feat previously unachievable on its own. This same data is being read by Canary using OPC.
Environment Sensor Integration via MQTT using DataHub
Following a new building automation implementation, the facility we are operating ended up with MQTT-enabled sensors for temperature monitoring in various buildings. These sensors publish their readings as MQTT Clients. To manage and route the variety of topics, an on-premise DataHub MQTT Broker is required, facilitating the collection of data from these sensors. The DataHub will then serve this information to Canary using MQTT or OPC UA.
Understanding Canary Historian
Canary’s time series engine is a powerful data management platform designed for industrial automation. It excels at high-speed data ingestion & scalability that allows users to grow with the solution, while delivering value for both site-level historization and enterprise-wide needs. The platform's architecture supports open integration with a variety of industrial systems and software, aligning closely with Software Toolbox’s solutions.
The tile-based user interface (UI) provides an intuitive overview of the numerous options offered by the Historian platform. With a quick glance at the current configuration, users can view key statistics across various plug-ins in use. From OPC collection with TOP Server and OmniServer to the MQTT Sparkplug B collector for DataHub, the Historian tile consolidates all incoming data, presenting essential metrics for current data flow. The addition of our solutions to the Canary Historian creates limitless possibilities of outreach to bring in data from your industrial automation systems.
Leveraging the Canary Calculation Engine
The collection of historical data opens a whole new range of possibilities for how the information can be analyzed. Live data serves its role within operations to keep things running. And now with a history of how this has changed over time, better decisions can be made, and new trends can be identified to incorporate data-driven decisions. Although several of Software Toolbox’s products can do calculations within them or through plug-ins, a key part of the way we work is to support the customer solving problems in the best way for them. This might mean, as it did at this site, the customer choosing to not use our add-on features, or even built in features. In this case this customer chose to use the calculation & events engine available in the Canary platform to perform a wide range of mathematical operations, enabling a layer of data analysis directly within the historian.
By integrating data from TOP Server, OmniServer, and DataHub, we can manipulate and expand on the raw data collected. This enables us to derive new insights and create a comprehensive view of our operations from a single instance.
The following calculations were configured in the Canary engine:
- Bay1_AvgTemp – Uses MQTT sensor data collected from Cogent DataHub to calculate a new average every 5 seconds based on the previous 24 hours of data.
- Meter5_AvgAmps – Data collected from a PLC via TOP Server represents the average amperage from an evaporator, with calculations every 5 seconds over the latest 24 hours.
- Scale2_MaxWeight – OmniServer readings from a Mettler Toledo scale capture the maximum weight over a 24-hr period each time a new value is received.
By performing calculations in real-time, the engine provides immediate access to key performance indicators (KPIs). This enables operators and managers to make timely decisions to address issues and scale out calculations across various datasets from a centralized solution.
From within the Canary view, we can quickly review the new tags created by our calculations and populate an automatic trend chart directly from the historian, as seen below:
What’s Next
The calculation engine's new tags are not simply confined to the historian alone; Canary's open connectivity options allow the derived values to be shared and utilized by external systems. In the next part of our series, we'll demonstrate this by leveraging OPC Router’s REST API capabilities to continue our efforts of seamless integration and data utilization across different platforms.
You’ll want to stay subscribed to our blog, especially as we continue our deep dive into data storages with our product offerings. If you have any questions about integrating various sources of data into your automation platforms, please contact our support team.
