MEASUREMENT & MONITORING
IOT PLATFORM
CAPTION DATA
FINDING AN IOT PLATFORM AS A SERVICE [PAAS]
THAT REALLY WORKS FOR INDUSTRIALS!
If you have an asset base that runs into
hundreds, thousands or more and you want
to connect them to an Industrial IOT platform
there are a few key questions you will need
answering. For example:
Does this platform really work? Whats the
evidence? Whats the installed user base?
What sort of comm’s protocols will it handle?
What happens when comm’s are interrupted?
Is it multi national [not just language but
date stamping events, storage of data, and of
course language as well]? What about Cyber
security – is it hackable? Whats the evidence?
And crucially how easy is it to configure,
deploy and scale? And a host more besides!
exact needs for refinement of the basic
system. If your assets have existing comms
output we can take that directly to our
SmartHub. If not our NanoULTRA Edge will
act as a gateway not, as the unit has no comms ports and no
operating system so nothing to attack, and
uses its own microcontroller to control the
outwardly initiated communication process
to our servers via a modem.
WHATS THE INSTALLED USER
BASE? HOW EASY IS IT TO CONFIGURE,
DEPLOY AND SCALE?
Ask to explore other user sites with numbers
of devices/users similar to yours. Quiz the
architecture for systems administration
functionality – can you mirror your actual
operating structure so the information
and analytics can really be used in your
organisation as is? You may want a variety
of dashboards serving different levels from
field technicians, through team management
up to board level oversight. Where is data
actually stored [local servers, AWS, etc] and
where does that take you in terms of security/
uptime etc.?
So taking the above questions in turn: Ask your proposed platform supplier about
their user base, and to talk to some actual
users. There are a couple of angles here:
firstly the breadth of experience across
different hardware and comms options and
how they work in different market sectors.
Secondly about the user experience in
terms of support, UI/UX of the product,
on-going relationships with the supplier. In
CDL case our declared mission is “to help
power our customers businesses through our
technology”, and we think intuitively about
the lifetime value of our relationship with our
customers, and they with their customers
– not just the next sale! You can check out
some of our client reviews here. DOES THIS PLATFORM AS A
SERVICE REALLY WORK? WHATS
THE EVIDENCE? WHAT ABOUT CYBER SECURITY
– IS IT HACKABLE? WHATS THE
EVIDENCE? Ask your prospective partner to hook up a
couple of your units to demonstrate. CDL
often get involved in this and it proves really
useful to us to understand your needs and
your equipment, and we like to think it helps
you by seeing live [and with minimum fuss]
how your product looks on-line. It will quickly
become obvious what the evidence and
knowledge base is. In CDL’s case this often
shows up in the speed with which we can get
equipment talking, demonstrate immediate
analytics and quickly start specifying your A whole topic on its own, but you do need
to discuss things like password policies
and security – is Multi factor authorisation
relevant? Where and how is data stored? For
how long and who owns it? In our case it is
always the client who owns it, we are the
custodians, and use AWS cloud. When did
your prospective partner last do a pen test?
How good is their operational resilience? How
are your assets going to talk to the Platform
as a Service? Is this a point of weakness – if
we use our NanoULTRA Edge we are sure its
Well, whatever your questions the engineers
at CDL will work with you to answer them.
We have been providing industrial IOT
systems for over a decade now [it wasn’t
called IoT back then, but remote monitoring!]
and we provide end-to-end IIOT hardware
solutions to industrial customers, including
many global blue chips, but we also provide
access to our CDL SmartHub portal for clients
who already have quantities of already
installed hardware with comms possibilities.
This means they can tap into the know-
how we have developed over 10 years as
a company and hundreds of man-years
experience from our own employed software,
firmware, server and support engineers, and
thousands of installed systems with millions
of reporting data events every day.
As you can see there is a lot to consider
and the key message here is not about the
technical answers or ways of doing things but
about the need to find a partner to work with
you who “gets all this” and lives and breathes
it, so you reduce your risks and increase your
probabilities of successful implementation
via an Industrial Platform as a Service. Take a
look at our purpose video for more on how
we work with our clients.
If you would like to know more about
our Industrial IoT solutions and how we
can help you monitor your assets, please
call us +44 (0) 1905 754 078 and ask for
one of our IoT Application Specialists.
[email protected]
www.captiondata.com
Issue 38 PECM
151