AWS IoT SiteWise launches support for Modbus TCP and EtherNet/IP protocols with enhancements to OPC-UA data ingestion
AWS IoT SiteWise now supports data ingestion using ModBus TCP and EtherNet/IP (EIP) protocols. You can do so by adding Modbus or EIP devices as data sources to your SiteWise Gateway. For data ingestion from OPC-UA data sources, you can now customize the scan mode and scan rate along with specifying deadbands. Lastly, you can provide a custom AWS IoT Greengrass StreamManager stream as a destination for protocol data.
AWS IoT SiteWise now supports data ingestion using ModBus TCP and EtherNet/IP (EIP) protocols. You can do so by adding Modbus or EIP devices as data sources to your SiteWise Gateway. For data ingestion from OPC-UA data sources, you can now customize the scan mode and scan rate along with specifying deadbands. Lastly, you can provide a custom AWS IoT Greengrass StreamManager stream as a destination for protocol data.
- Modbus TCP data sources: For each Modbus TCP data source (such as a flow meter or a power meter), you can specify which Modbus registers to ingest data from along with the polling frequency (scan rate). For each tag, you can specify the Modbus TCP source data type you want to convert data from along with a AWS IoT SiteWise destination data type to convert data to. In order to add Modbus data sources, you need to ensure your edge device has the AWS IoT Greengrass Modbus connector deployed. Refer to this page in the AWS IoT SiteWise user guide to review all supported configuration options.
- EtherNet/IP data sources: For each EtherNet/IP data source (such as a programmable logic controller), you can specify which tags (data streams) to ingest data from along with the polling frequency (scan rate). For each tag, you can specify which AWS IoT SiteWise destination data type to convert data to (source data type is automatically inferred from the protocol). In order to add EIP sources, you need to ensure your edge device has the AWS IoT Greengrass EtherNet/IP connector deployed. Refer to this page in the AWS IoT SiteWise user guide to review all supported configuration options.
- Custom scan mode and scan rate for OPC-UA data sources: For OPC-UA data sources, you can now choose between “Subscription” or “Polling” scan mode. In subscription mode, the OPC-UA server transmits data only when it changes. This mode is helpful in ingesting data from sources that have a high rate of change. In polling mode, the connector polls the OPC-UA server at a specified frequency to pull data points even if the values do not change. This is helpful in ensuring a constant rate of ingestion from sources that may have a low rate of change. For both these options, you can select a scan rate or polling frequency. For more details, refer to this section in the AWS IoT SiteWise user guide.
- Deadbanding for OPC-UA data sources: For OPC-UA data sources, you can now specify deadband ranges, during which the OPC-UA server will only transmit new data if it falls outside of the specified deadband range, when compared to the last transmitted value. You can use this functionality to reduce ingestion rate as well as smoothen out a data stream by ensuring only changes beyond a certain threshold get transmitted. You can select an absolute value or percentage based dead-band range. For example, specifying a 10% deadband value on a sensor with a range 20 degree range (+40 degrees Fahrenheit to +60 degrees Fahrenheit) tells the server to only transmit data when the value changes by 2 degrees Fahrenheit or more compared to the last transmitted value. For more details, refer to this section in the AWS IoT SiteWise user guide.
- AWS IoT Greengrass StreamManager stream destination for protocol data: For all 3 protocol data sources (OPC-UA, Modbus and EIP), you can now select a custom AWS IoT Greengrass StreamManager stream as the destination for the data. Up until this point, all data would go to the “SiteWise Stream” that would then be routed to the AWS IoT SiteWise cloud service. By routing data to a custom stream, you can now author AWS Lambda functions that can perform local transformations or filtering, on the edge. For e.g. you can connect to a local on-premise ERP system to load information to enrich the data streams. You can also setup an export on the custom stream to send data to AWS IoT Analytics, Amazon Kinesis Data Streams and Amazon S3. For more details, refer to this page in the AWS IoT SiteWise user guide.
AWS IoT SiteWise is a managed service that makes it easy to collect, store, organize and monitor data from industrial equipment at scale to help you make better, data-driven decisions. To get started, log into the AWS Management Console and navigate to AWS IoT SiteWise console and check out a demo to see what you can achieve with AWS IoT SiteWise. To learn more, please visit the AWS IoT SiteWise website or the developer guide.
Visit our AWS IoT website to learn more about other AWS IoT services.