Sep 2019

OT-to-MQTT Gateways Take Your Data to the Cloud Effortlessly

The ultimate goal of most IIoT deployments is to obtain actionable insights from industrial data sources to allow business owners to make more informed and precise decisions about their operations. To achieve this goal, businesses need to make their operational technology (OT) field data accessible to information technology (IT) databases, whether on premises or in the cloud.

However, bridging the gap between OT field data and IT systems for IIoT applications can be a time-consuming task that involves collecting data from many OT devices that use different protocols or interfaces, and converting and transferring the data to IT systems that generally use the Message Queuing Telemetry Transport (MQTT) protocol.

To successfully converge your OT field and IT databases, you need a suitable connectivity solution that enables communication between MQTT and the following OT protocols or interfaces that are commonly used at industrial field sites:

1. Proprietary Serial Protocols

Many industrial devices use proprietary protocols to collect serial data from displays, barcode scanners, and printers. In order for IT systems to use this data, you need a serial device server that can convert proprietary serial data and transmit the information over the MQTT protocol.

2. Modbus and EtherNet/IP Protocols

Modbus and EtherNet/IP are the protocols most frequently used for devices such as power meters, flow meters, RTUs, VFDs, and PLCs. To enable these standard OT protocols to communicate with IT systems, you will need a protocol gateway that can convert OT protocols to MQTT.

3. Analog or Digital Interfaces

For sensors, signal lights, or tower lights that only have I/O interfaces, you will need a remote I/O that supports the MQTT protocol in order to directly convert these signals into a format that your IT system can process.

Ready-to-run Connectivity Solutions

With Moxa, converting your OT device data to MQTT is easier than you may think. Moxa’s NPort IA5000A-I/O and NPort IAW5000A-I/O serial device servers, MGate 5105-MB-EIP gateway, and ioThinx 4500 modular controllers and I/Os are all equipped with ready-to-run MQTT connectivity that easily bridges the gap between your OT field data and IT systems. These solutions even allow you to easily connect multiple serial, Modbus, EtherNet/IP, and I/O field devices to a public cloud, such as Azure or Alibaba Cloud, or a private database through generic MQTT. When using our intuitive UIs, it only takes a few steps to complete the cloud selection, connection, and message tag settings, which allows you to map the data between the field and cloud.

What If My Application Requires Programmability or Data Preprocessing?

Edge computing offers data pre-processing, which ensures only necessary data is transferred to the IT database or cloud, and keeps sensitive data close to the network. Edge computing works best in distributed control systems with geographically dispersed end devices, in environments where connectivity may be unstable, or in areas where it is hard to build databases on-site. IIoT applications that periodically generate data in terabytes, and where the cost of sending data to the cloud is high, are also good candidates for using an edge computer, such as Moxa’s UC-8100A.

Intelligent Connectivity Solutions Taking IIoT to the Next Level

Moxa’s easy-to-use, reliable, and intelligent connectivity solutions are connecting millions of edge devices to a wide variety of IIoT applications to effortlessly bring data from the edge to the cloud. Download our Intelligent Connectivity Solutions brochure to learn more.

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