Dylan DuFresne’s Post

Now that we have our edge data modeled in Ignition, lets see what it looks like when we publish it to a broker. Using a Gateway Tag Change Script that listens to all of the tags in our Enterprise folder, we can publish the value and timestamp of each tag as it changes. From here, other applications can subscribe to this data. Using these other applications, we can add additional context, transform, analyze, visualize, and even store it for later. See how we modeled the data here: https://lnkd.in/g5s_j2S5 #SCADA #Ignition #Controls #UnifiedNamespace

Well, after you all convinced me to finish it, the Object Modeling Example resource is now available on the Inductive Automation Ignition exchange. I am looking forward to seeing what we can build with these UDTs 🙂 So I would encourage you to please share your creations so we can all learn together. Lastly I wanted to note that I am hoping to find a little time to clean it up a bit more but I figured that getting it out there was probably more important than making it perfect. So, if you find any bugs please let me know. There are bonus points if you also have a fix for that bug 🚀 https://lnkd.in/g46iXygD #SCADA #Edge #IIOT

I have Been working on some UDTs for Asset and Equipment Modeling in Ignition. I started out as an educational endeavor to learn ISA95 Part 2 and evolved from there to encompass some of the specific needs around the Controls layer and Interfacing with existing PLCs. The goal quickly became to find a way to consistently model and clean the data that already existed inside the PLCs. I started out with some of the Common Object Models, specifically: 1. Equipment 2. Asset 3. Material 4. Personnel   From there I started mapping the Ignition Tags to PLC Tags and noticed that we needed a few more fields to make the PLC interaction easier. So, I added some UDTS for Raw Values, some State and Mode enumeration, Duration,  as well as Scaling. Added them into the hierarchy and this is where it brought me. I guess the real question is… Is this something that people would find valuable if I were to clean it up? The plan would be to submit it to the Ignition Exchange and make it publicly available. Let me know what you think, Should I put it on the shelf or finish it up? #Ignition #ISA95 #Controls

How do you identify the needs of the people? By talking to them. Here is a simple story that details just that. It is a hypothetical scenario inspired by my own experiences and the questions I have been asked recently.

I have been hearing the same questions quite a bit lately. “How can I figure out where the data comes from?” “How can I figure out what the data means?” The answer is very simple, it comes from the plant floor. To add to that. If you do not know exactly where your data comes from, you probably need to spend more time with the people on the plant floor… After spending countless hours in front of machines and in the control rooms learning from the experts themselves - The operators. I can’t even count the times where I was in over my head, looking at a process or machine that I was unfamiliar with. With someone standing behind me asking when it would be back in production. So often, the operators were the ones to graciously help me to understand not only what was wrong, but how we can prevent it from going wrong again. Seriously, get to know the humans on the front lines and watch the magic happen.

🔧 Checking out some new tools to add to the toolbox. Exploring NATS.io and really appreciating the ability to use the headers for Metadata! Also trying out a new language in my personal and educational projects, Go.   So, to get started with some basics I threw together a quick service that listens to all the subjects on a NATS broker and serves a front end that displays them. This is just early exploratory stuff but so far, I am liking both Go and NATS. I am excited to add these tools to the toolbox!  

May the 4th be with you as you learn how to query a GraphQL server from your Ignition gateway. #Ignition #GraphQL #Industry40

⛰ 🚶♂Like many others, I have been on a journey to learn exactly what the Unified Namespace is. Amidst the sea of content, there are so many definitions to get lost in. Some competing, some excessively abstract, and others just plain advertising. The only real consensus I have seen is in what it is not. Which doesn’t help as we are trying to nail down exactly what it is. I have spent a lot of time thinking and talking about the Unified Namespace over the last few years, consuming both paid and free content, and I think I finally understand. #UNS #DigitalTransformation #UnifiedNamespace #Industry40

Diving into CDC (Change Data Capture) with PostgreSQL attempting to find more ways to incorporate SQL Databases in IIOT architectures. Working on an event driven Recipe Database that can be plugged directly into a UNS. One of the first steps was to get the raw events from the database to an MQTT Broker. To accomplish this I wrote a simple python service that listens to the Postgres Database, waiting to be notified of a change by a Trigger Function. These functions are triggered on event of INSERT, UPDATE, or DELETE on each table. They log the events in an audit table and notify the listener that an event has occurred. The listener service then formats a JSON object based on the event and publishes it to the broker.   This service is currently running in Docker, part of a compose stack that also includes the Mosquito Broker,  Postgres Database, and a couple of Node Red instances. Next steps, I am planning to use Node Red Dashboard 2.0 to create a UI for the API Endpoints and Use Node Red to write a selected Recipe to a PLC. #IIOT #UNS