Why I4.0 Integration Suite? What is the I4.0 Integration Suite? Do It Yourself: I4.0 Local Cloud Lösung
I4.0 / IIoT Programming with the “I4.0 Integration Suite”
Digitization means: Abolition of manual labor between IT and OT
Digitization and Industry 4.0 are still treated far too abstractly today. Basically, it’s quite simple: Everywhere where you still have to intervene manually to have one software interact with another software, that still has to be eliminated. We still see this quite often today, especially in the interaction between the production level and IT. If these interfaces are automated, the knot will untie itself.
Data must be written automatically from IT to OT – and vice versa. Processes and IT applications can trigger functions that copy such data. These tasks are still often done by hand today – and they need to be automated.
Protocols and interfaces, such as OPC UA, are seen as tools in this way. Digitization is when you start working with these tools. It must be possible to hand over these tasks to a robot, so to speak, i.e. they are programmed out.
But nobody thinks about that:
But this digitization only brings benefits if the company really becomes more flexible – in other words, can respond more quickly to new requirements. If an external specialist is needed for every change in machinery, automation or the product range, it becomes much more complicated. And when things get complicated, at some point nothing works at all. This achieves exactly the opposite of what was originally intended. The company is not more flexible, but threatens to become rigid.
That’s why it needs a tool,
- that speaks the language of automation. I.e. can be programmed like a PLC and the visualization to it
- that already knows the data points on the PLCs
- with which one can communicate with the interfaces of the IT people as well as the Cloud
- where you can integrate the API’s and interface functions provided by the IT people
- which gives you the possibility to connect modern scripting languages like NodeJS, Python, PHP and C# and their libraries
- which controls and logs all involved procedures, calls and processes, so that one can understand when and where something does not work
With such software, automation professionals could do all the I4.0 and IIoT development themselves. And wherever they don’t know their way around, they can ask the IT developer to give them a function or an API in his software that can be used to read and write data from the IT application in question.
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What is the I4.0 Integration Suite?
SpiderControl I4.0 Integration Suite
The “SpiderControl I4.0 Integration Suite” is a comprehensive low-code tool for developing solutions for integrating OT into IT. It consists of a powerful SCADA server and a simple browser-based FBD programming tool and is aimed specifically at programmers from the PLC sector.
The SpiderControl SCADA Server includes all common drivers for communication with the control plane and operation via a standard HTML5 browser.
The SpiderControl HMI Editor allows easy design of HTML5 user interfaces, which are used for all UI tasks: SCADA control system, operator panels for on-site operation, remote browser access and visualization of KPI’s, alarm lists and trends.
The SpiderPLC and the I4.0 Integration Library: The SpiderPLC allows programming of function plans directly from an HTML5 browser. The I4.0 Integration Library contains a large number of function blocks that can be used to implement the described tasks very easily: Communication with SQL databases, REST API’s, MQTT, http, screen dumps, creating PDFs, sending emails, FTP transfer, string manipulation, copying files, reading and writing CSV variable files, logging, creating and editing variable namespaces, calling and monitoring external processes, etc. These function modules are now directly connected to the process variables.
The SpiderPLC starts and monitors script engines, such as NodeJS and Python, so that custom scripts can be integrated and called via a function module.
>> Test the I4.0 Integration Suite directly in the cloud
Available for many platforms
SpiderControl is available on all major operating systems. This allows you to use the same concepts and applications throughout your company.
SpiderControl runs
- on IT’s servers (Windows Server, Linux, Dokker)
- in the cloud (Azure, Amazon, EC2, etc.)
- on industrial hardware (DIN rail IPC under Linux, Android operator panels, Windows IoT, etc.)
One-Stop-Shopping
I4.0 Integration Suite pre-installed on the PiXtend Raspberry Pi
The I4.0 Integration Suite is a package pre-installed on PiXtend that provides an extensive library of functions for solving such tasks, allowing people from the automation environment to implement and maintain these tasks themselves via a very simple browser-based function plan programming.
The setup presented here can be downloaded as a complete SD card image. By the way, all relevant components are already pre-installed on this image. There is no faster and easier way to an I4.0 project! And that: Exclusively with your own personnel!
The SCADA server with SpiderPLC for PiXtend is available for free download.
Do It Yourself: I4.0
With SpiderControl, a company can build an I4.0 infrastructure itself – step by step – with its existing personnel. The costs remain transparent and, above all, manageable. The risk of failure is thus much lower, because no large budgets for external specialists are necessary and undesirable developments can be detected much more quickly.
Once the data has been collected and the functions are in place, the connection to the cloud is just a data brick away.
With the “SpiderControl I4.0 Integration Suite”, Industry 4.0 and IIot becomes a task that can be implemented with the existing workforce – step by step. The digital infrastructure is built up without any risk and at manageable, calculable costs, so that new business models can be gradually tested on the market and improved on this basis.
Local Cloud Solution
Data acquisition (PDA) and its associated activities are more important today than ever before. But many companies still shy away from opening up the production level to the Internet or storing their own operational data on a public cloud. There are perfectly justifiable objections to justify these reluctances:
- Virus protection is much more difficult to implement within an automation network than in an office. Likewise, the consequences of a virus attack are often more severe.
- Production data reveals the innermost details of a company. Foreign intelligence agencies collect AI algorithms nowadays.
With a local cloud, companies can operate a server within their closed company network.
We will install a system for you that covers all your needs. And with the “I4.0 Integration Suite”, many administrative tasks, such as backups, can be automated.
