Connectivity
Any device or data source can be connected to Iotellect using an Agent or a Driver.
Drivers allow edge, cloud, or on-premise Iotellect servers to “speak” device’s native protocol, performing server-side protocol interpretation.
Agents are software libraries that “live inside” your custom device and normalize device data to match Iotellect’s unified data model.
IoT Edge Gateways
Iotellect server can also run on the industrial PCs, Linux PLCs, single-board computers, and specialized IoT gateways. It provides the local monitoring, control and decision-making, as well as data buffering for higher-tier server and cloud connections.
Drivers and Agents
Iotellect Agent is an open-source software component that is incorporated into the firmware of a device to make it compatible with Iotellect. Agent is responsible for handling the Iotellect Server communications and normalizing data, i.e. converting it to the Iotellect’s unified model format.
Agents usually run on devices that you control or influence: microcontrollers, IoT gateways, single-board computers, programmable modules, mobile devices, or even regular PCs. The available Agent implementations include Java, .NET, C++, JavaScript, mobile platforms, and more.
Iotellect directly supports numerous communication and control protocols. Device drivers bundled with Iotellect allow connecting different devices produced by thousands of manufacturers.
Standard device drivers implement communications via most widely used IT, automation, IoT and structured data exchange protocols.
Sometimes it may be necessary to connect a new third-party device that uses proprietary unsupported protocol. If the device is using TCP, UDP or serial connection and a relatively simple command-reply or asynchronous message scheme, Iotellect Flexible Driver can be used for implementing custom protocol in low-code. For complicated protocols that involve dependent command sets and transactions, it's possible to develop a Java-based device driver.
Standard Protocol Support
Iotellect supports dozens of standard communication protocols and technologies divided into several categories: IoT, industrial, IT, and structured data exchange protocols.
Protocol List
| Protocol / Tech | Driver | Description |
|---|---|---|
| Iotellect Protocol | Iotellect Agent | Communicating with implemented Iotellect Agents using any language/platform (C/C++, .NET, Java). |
| Asterisk | Asterisk | Monitoring and management of Asterisk computer-integrated telephony by sending CLI commands and response processing. |
| BACnet | BACnet | Support for BACnet IP and BACnet MS/TP. Reading/writing device properties. Accessing device services and receiving notifications. |
| CoAP | CoAP | Web transfer protocol for use with constrained nodes and constrained networks in the Internet of Things. |
| CORBA | CORBA | Performing CORBA calls via IP network by specifying input parameters and processing any output. |
| CWMP | CWMP | Managing and monitoring customer-premises equipment (CPE) according to TR-069 specification. |
| DHCP | Network Host | DHCP server operability monitoring. |
| DLMS/COSEM | DLMS/COSEM | Acquiring spot meter reading values and their history. |
| DNP3 | DNP3 | Full support for DNP3 application layer: read/write, select and operate, direct operate, event handling, etc. |
| DNS | Network Host | DNS zone contents validation. DNS server operability monitoring. |
| Ethernet/IP | Ethernet/IP | Support for open industrial Ethernet, CIP protocol. |
| EVA-DTS | Iotellect Agent | Vending machine monitoring. Acquisition of available EVA-DTS metrics, statistics and errors. |
| FTP | Network Host | Remote file attributes monitoring. FTP server operability monitoring. |
| GPS/GLONASS and M2M Data | Satellite Vehicle Tracker | Receiving arbitrary reports from any satellite trackers and other M2M devices via TCP or UDP. Business-rule-based command parsing. Out-of-the-box support for different tracker models. |
| HTTP/HTTPS | HTTP Proxy | Providing access to web servers running in network controllers/modules protected by NAT/firewall. |
| HTTP/HTTPS | Network Host | Exposing web page contents for system core. Web server operability monitoring. |
| ICMP | Network Host | Availability monitoring (ping) and route tracing (traceroute). |
| IEC 60870-5-104 | IEC-104 | Support for IEC 60870-5-104 protocol, both slave and master modes. |
| IEC 60870-5-104 | IEC-104 Server | Support for IEC 60870-5-104 protocol in server mode. |
| IMAP | Network Host | IMAP server operability monitoring. |
| IMAP | Core | Fetching incoming emails and converting into Iotellect events. |
| IPMI | IPMI | Monitoring and control of IPMI-enabled servers and network devices. |
| JMS | WebSphere MQ | IBM WebSphere MQ monitoring. |
| JMX | Java Management Extensions | Reading/writing MBean attributes. Executing MBean operations. Receiving MBean notifications. |
| LDAP | Network Host | Exposing search request results to system core for further processing. Operability monitoring for Active Directory or any LDAP server. |
| LON/LonTalk | OPC | LON device network and LNS servers can be interfaced through an OPC server and OPC device driver. Available LON-to-OPC bridges include IPLONGATE, Matrikon OPC Server for Echelon LNS, Matrikon OPC Server for Echelon LonManager, ConneXSoft CXS iLink DA Server for Echelon Smart Server, Gesytec Easylon OPC Server, Newron System NLOPC MIP, and more. |
| LON/LonTalk | Web Services | Echelon SmartServer and hardware behind it can be interfaced through the SOAP (Web Service) API and SOAP device driver. |
| MDB | Iotellect Agent | Vending machine control. Transaction monitoring (slave mode) and server-initiated transaction processing (master mode). |
| Meter-Bus | M-Bus | Acquiring spot meter reading values and their history. |
| Modbus | Modbus | Support for Modbus/RTU, Modbus/ASCII, Modbus/TCP, and Modbus/UDP. Registering read/write operations. |
| GSM/GPRS Modem Control | Modem | Sending/receiving SMS messages, modem control, and data retrieval via AT command execution. |
| MQTT | MQTT | ISO standard publish-subscribe-based messaging protocol for use on top of TCP/IP protocol. |
| NetFlow | NetFlow | Network traffic decomposition and in-depth analysis. |
| NMEA 0183 | NMEA | Exposing any NMEA sentence fields for system core. Device location tracking. |
| ODBC | Database | Via standard JDBC-ODBC bridge, see SQL device driver. |
| OPC | OLE for Process Control | Support for OPC DA 2.0 via DCOM. Works under Windows, Linux, and Mac OS. |
| OPC | Iotellect Agent driver + Iotellect OPC Agent | Support for OPC DA, AE, and HDA. Iotellect OPC Agent is standalone software installed on Windows and working with Iotellect servers running under Windows, Linux, and Mac OS. |
| OPC UA | OPC Unified Architecture | Full support of OPC UA stack. |
| POP3 | Network Host | POP3 server operability monitoring. |
| POP3 | Core | Fetching incoming emails and converting into Iotellect events. |
| Radius | Network Host | Radius server operability monitoring. |
| SIP | SIP | Placing test VoIP calls and retrieving call metrics. |
| SMB/CIFS | Network Host | Accessing and monitoring files and folders shared via Microsoft Windows Network (SBM/CIFS) technology. |
| SMI-S | SMI-S | Control of disk storage supporting SMI-S protocol. Monitoring object properties, executing queries and object methods, processing events. |
| SMPP | SMPP | Sending SMS messages through SMPP gateway. |
| SMTP | Network Host | SMTP server operability monitoring. |
| SMTP | Core | Sending dynamically generated emails on-demand, on event, and according to schedule. |
| SNMP | SNMP | Support for SNMP v1, v2c, and v3. Read/write operations, receiving and sending traps. MIB directory and editor. |
| SOAP | Web Services | Performing arbitrary Web Service calls via SOAP protocol by specifying input data and processing any output. |
| SQL | Database | Support for any JDBC/ODBC-compliant database server. Dynamic SELECT / UPDATE / INSERT / DELETE query execution. Exposing query results for system core. Database status monitoring. |
| SSH | Network Host | Executing shell scripts and applications on remote machines. SSH server operability monitoring. |
| Syslog | Syslog | Receiving and sending Syslog messages. |
| Telnet | Network Host | Executing shell scripts and applications on remote machines. Telnet server operability monitoring. |
| Video Streaming | Displaying video streams from any IP cameras or Video Management Systems that use MJPEG, H.264, JPEG Stills or any of other 100+ supported formats. | |
| VMware SOAP API | VMware | Retrieving hypervisor/VM status and performance counters. |
| WMI | WMI | Monitoring WMI object properties, executing WQL queries and object methods, processing WMI events. |
| XMPP | XMPP | Implementation of Sensor Data and Control extensions of the protocol. |
| Application/Script | Executing custom applications/scripts on demand or upon schedule. Retrieving and processing their output. | |
| Avatar | Localizing any remote device driver by creating local "Avatars" to simplify solution development and improve network performance. | |
| File | Local file monitoring, checksum verification, exposing file contents for system core. | |
| Flexible | Acting as a self-service driver construction kit for solution engineer to support proprietary protocols without any Java coding. | |
| Folder | Local folder monitoring, exposing folder contents for system core. | |
| Graph Database | Storage of topologies in various graph databases supported by Apache TinkerPop, including Neo4j. Access to graph computing operations provided by Gremlin language. | |
| Message Stream | Monitoring incoming data via Serial/TCP/UDP connections. | |
| Tracker | Processing of TCP/UDP data streams from devices that connect to the server themselves, such as GNSS trackers or similar. | |
| Virtual Device | Device simulator, provides variables of different types, wave generators, test operations and events. | |
| Web Transaction | Advanced web application monitoring. Allows analyzing availability, health, and performance by modeling end-user activity scenarios of any complexity. |
Low-Code for Device Communications
With Iotellect, you don’t need to code anything related to device communications even when your device’s communication protocol is not in the long list of protocols supported out-of-the-box.
Instead, we offer a low-code driver construction kit known as Flexible Driver. It provides a visual configuration process to connect with devices that use proprietary protocols without a single line of neither platform-side nor device-side “classic” code in Java, C++, or anything similar.
With the flexible driver, your app can establish outgoing and handle incoming device connections, parse TCP data streams or UDP datagrams, send synchronous custom commands to devices and process any asynchronous notifications.
And the most complicated thing you’ll need to configure is a set of expressions that analyze and build protocol data units. Those expressions are no more complicated than formulas in a spreadsheet!
Flexible Driver Architecture
Industrial Connectivity
IIoT capabilities of Iotellect make it a perfect fit for digital transformation of medium and small industrial companies. For quick start, you’ll just need one or more edge servers for ingesting your shop floor data into the cloud and enabling local supervisory control. Storage, visualization, advanced analytics, and low-code IIoT app building will then be available as a convenient service.
Platform’s unique set of industrial device drivers enable seamless connection of smart machines and PLCs. In most cases, you won’t even need a hardware converter or an OPC gateway.
All Iotellect’s modules and components naturally understand industrial data values accompanied by PLC-side timestamps and quality metrics. With polling periods measured by milliseconds and capabilities to process hundreds of thousands metric values per second, Iotellect installation can easily scale up to a data lake of a multi-facility industrial enterprise.
Iotellect’s edge servers can also expose collected data to third-party industrial systems via OPC DA server and IEC 104 server modules.
LPWAN Connectivity
Iotellect can reach LPWAN networks and devices by communicating to LPWAN network servers and even base stations connected to an IP network.
Platform’s integration with LoRa, Sigfox, NB-IoT, and LTE-3M networks lets you create models of LPWA sensors and actuators for using structured data exchange protocols to inject sensor payloads and send control commands.
Iotellect expression language and other data processing tools make it sure that any sophisticated payload encoding/decoding logic can be implemented as low code.
Structured Data Exchange
Being an IoT platform, Iotellect provides industry’s best coverage for IoT/IIoT communication protocols. However, any IoT product you’ll be implementing is not running standalone. It requires multiple integration points for interfacing other systems—such as billing, service desk, CRM, ERP, and many others. This is even more important if you develop a solution that runs within the corporate IT landscape of a larger enterprise: in this case you might have dozens of integration points and scenarios.
Covering countless integration scenarios required us to support many structured data exchange protocols - starting from “must-haves” HTTP and JDBC/ODBC up to exotic ones, such as SOAP and CORBA.
However, supporting the underlying protocols is not enough. Unlike many competing platforms, Iotellect’s core is oriented towards processing complex hierarchical data structures, such as SQL query results or JSON/XML value hierarchies. Everything within Iotellect’s unified data model is designed to interact with such structures, regardless of their nature and a system that they originated from or destined to.
IoT Edge Platform
Iotellect Edge brings the power of Iotellect IoT Platform down to physical assets. It includes a complete set of field bus drivers for industrial automation and building management systems. Data processing and analytics on controllers are simple with a workflow engine, complex event processing, and machine learning modules. Embedded Web UI Builder enables data visualization on any device from smartphones to industrial panels.
Iotellect Server running on an edge gateway can leverage gateway’s certified fieldbus drivers for interfacing hardware via Ethernet/Wi-Fi, serial ports, digital and analog I/O, SPI/I2C, Bluetooth, CAN, Zegbee/Z-wave, and other technologies. Iotellect’s Local Agent module uses gateway’s flash memory or SSD drive for buffering data that wasn’t sent to the cloud due to connection issues.
Iotellect Edge can operate on industrial controllers in severe environments and work on devices meeting the following minimal requirements: Linux or Windows operating system with Java support, 1GHz CPU, 512MB RAM.
Applications
Smart Home
Build a smart home around a controller with installed Iotellect Edge by connecting all appliances via various wired and wireless channels. Low-code and test HMIs for wall-mount touch panels and smartphones.
Industrial Automation
Control and monitor processes by using the PLC logic standards: Functional Block Diagram (FBD), Structured Text (ST), Ladder Diagram (LD), and Sequential Function Chart (SFC).
Building Automation
Supervise the intelligent building systems, including HVAC, lighting, energy, fire safety, physical security, and more.
CNC Monitoring
Track the Overall Equipment Effectiveness (OEE) and perform the in-depth analysis of your machines by using Iotellect edge controllers as data acquisition gateways.
Telecom Tower Monitoring
Enable centralized monitoring and control for the fuel, energy, climate, perimeter security, and BTS equipment.
Smart Metering
Connect any non-IP meters and sensors to a cloud-based automatic meter reading system. Be sure that the data is buffered while the centralized storage is not available due to network issues.
Genset Monitoring
Connect generators that don't have anything beside the dry contacts. Track fuel levels, oil pressure, water/oil temperature, power output, active alarms, maintenance status, and more.
Battery Monitoring
Check the health of non-IP UPS units and battery packs by tracking the bypass mode state, voltages, currents, frequencies, remaining battery, load percentages, temperature, and other metrics.
Physical Security
Combine your controller or IIoT gateway with a physical access controller or custom security device by connecting various readers, locks and sensors. The access control logic is already there.
Sensor Network Gateway
Connect your wired or wireless field sensors and bridge data to the cloud. Design the local maps, add some weather information, and more.
Mobile Asset Tracking
Collect the telemetry data from any moving assets, such as vehicles or containers. Centralize the processing and analytics in the cloud.