Why HighByte Intelligence Hub version 3.0 is a step change for Industrial DataOps
Torey Penrod-Cambra
is the Chief Communications Officer of HighByte, focused on the company's messaging strategy, market presence, and ability to operationalize. Her areas of responsibility include marketing, public relations, analyst relations, investor relations, and people operations. Torey applies an analytical, data-driven approach to marketing that reflects her academic achievements in both chemistry and ethics. Torey received a Bachelor of Arts in Chemistry from Miami University in Oxford, Ohio and completed post-graduate studies in Bioethics Ethics and Health Law at the University of Pittsburgh.
For the past several months, 55 beta testers in 13 countries have been kicking the tires on HighByte Intelligence Hub version 3.0 and generously providing their feedback. Today, I’m excited to announce this major release is now available.
Version 3.0 is a step change for the Intelligence Hub and for the Industrial DataOps market. It raises the bar for what a DataOps solution can be at Enterprise scale. It introduces a powerful new Pipelines builder to curate complex data pipelines. It makes the often-vague concept of the Unified Namespace (UNS) tangible and achievable with an embedded MQTT broker—reducing additional software, cost, and administration overhead for our customers.
I sat down with HighByte Chief Product Officer John Harrington to talk about some of these advancements available in Version 3.0, including Pipelines. His thoughts are below. I also provide insights from our partner Goodtech, a deep dive on the embedded broker, a review of new project management capabilities, and more.
Version 3.0 is a step change for the Intelligence Hub and for the Industrial DataOps market. It raises the bar for what a DataOps solution can be at Enterprise scale. It introduces a powerful new Pipelines builder to curate complex data pipelines. It makes the often-vague concept of the Unified Namespace (UNS) tangible and achievable with an embedded MQTT broker—reducing additional software, cost, and administration overhead for our customers.
I sat down with HighByte Chief Product Officer John Harrington to talk about some of these advancements available in Version 3.0, including Pipelines. His thoughts are below. I also provide insights from our partner Goodtech, a deep dive on the embedded broker, a review of new project management capabilities, and more.
Pipelines for Complex Data
“Version 3.0 meets the evolving needs of industrial companies in their digital transformation journey. While the use cases remain the same, the scale and ease with which manufacturers can accomplish these use cases has really changed. This translates to significant time and cost savings for our customers.”
This statement from John Harrington seems to summarize the release well. In our discussion, he homed in on scalability and managing complex data.
“There are use cases where collecting, modeling, and sending data to an end system is not enough. For these, the Intelligence Hub now includes a graphical data Pipelines builder to curate and optimize complex data payloads for specific target applications. Flows collect, model, and push data to a pipeline, where it can be further processed. The Pipelines builder includes steps to buffer, transform, and format payloads and the ability to track the transformation of data through the pipeline. Pipelines provide a visual way to construct and monitor these transformations. DataOps is not about the source; it’s about the target.”
One example use case includes buffering data in 10-minute intervals, transforming the buffered data into Parquet file format, and sending this file to Amazon S3 or Azure Blob Storage. Another example includes bridging an OPC UA namespace to MQTT and controlling the topic hierarchy.
Tord van Delft, Project Engineer at Goodtech in the Nordics, shared this with us: “Using the Intelligence Hub’s unique bridging capabilities, we seamlessly bridge MQTT Sparkplug and OPC-UA sources. These bridges are bi-directional, dynamic (auto-discovery), and merge the source namespaces into a larger namespace with minimal effort. Previously we were configuring each point when bridging data, now this is something that happens auto-magically.”
This statement from John Harrington seems to summarize the release well. In our discussion, he homed in on scalability and managing complex data.
“There are use cases where collecting, modeling, and sending data to an end system is not enough. For these, the Intelligence Hub now includes a graphical data Pipelines builder to curate and optimize complex data payloads for specific target applications. Flows collect, model, and push data to a pipeline, where it can be further processed. The Pipelines builder includes steps to buffer, transform, and format payloads and the ability to track the transformation of data through the pipeline. Pipelines provide a visual way to construct and monitor these transformations. DataOps is not about the source; it’s about the target.”
One example use case includes buffering data in 10-minute intervals, transforming the buffered data into Parquet file format, and sending this file to Amazon S3 or Azure Blob Storage. Another example includes bridging an OPC UA namespace to MQTT and controlling the topic hierarchy.
Tord van Delft, Project Engineer at Goodtech in the Nordics, shared this with us: “Using the Intelligence Hub’s unique bridging capabilities, we seamlessly bridge MQTT Sparkplug and OPC-UA sources. These bridges are bi-directional, dynamic (auto-discovery), and merge the source namespaces into a larger namespace with minimal effort. Previously we were configuring each point when bridging data, now this is something that happens auto-magically.”
Unified Namespace in a Box
A UNS is the fastest growing design pattern for integrating industrial data into a highly scalable and accessible structure to provide a real time view of the state of the business. A UNS design includes an MQTT broker with data published in a highly prescribed and controlled structure.
HighByte Intelligence Hub version 3.0 includes an MQTT broker tightly integrated with the hub’s core data integration and contextualization capabilities. The MQTT v3.1.1 and v5 compliant broker was built from the ground up by HighByte. It supports both JSON and Sparkplug payloads and can be quickly enabled in the UI. The broker is a critical component to rapidly building a local UNS inside the factory.
HighByte Intelligence Hub version 3.0 includes an MQTT broker tightly integrated with the hub’s core data integration and contextualization capabilities. The MQTT v3.1.1 and v5 compliant broker was built from the ground up by HighByte. It supports both JSON and Sparkplug payloads and can be quickly enabled in the UI. The broker is a critical component to rapidly building a local UNS inside the factory.
Project Management through Tagging
Scaling deployments across a factory often requires many people working on the same Intelligence Hub instance to deploy many use cases, connections, and data flows.
The Intelligence Hub now includes tagging to define ad hoc collections of items in the configuration. These tags can easily be used to identify configurations related to a use case or a section of the factory or to limit permissions to specific people. Tagging enables easy grouping to filter the UI, synchronize across hubs, and grant permissions within a hub.
As an example, connections, models, and flows for an OEE project can be tagged “OEE” and the UI can filter to only view components in this project. Using Central Configuration, an Administrator can synchronize just the OEE tagged objects out to a remote hub. As another example, Microsoft Azure connections can be tagged “Azure” and restricted so that only IT admins can edit and synchronize these connections.
The Intelligence Hub now includes tagging to define ad hoc collections of items in the configuration. These tags can easily be used to identify configurations related to a use case or a section of the factory or to limit permissions to specific people. Tagging enables easy grouping to filter the UI, synchronize across hubs, and grant permissions within a hub.
As an example, connections, models, and flows for an OEE project can be tagged “OEE” and the UI can filter to only view components in this project. Using Central Configuration, an Administrator can synchronize just the OEE tagged objects out to a remote hub. As another example, Microsoft Azure connections can be tagged “Azure” and restricted so that only IT admins can edit and synchronize these connections.
Final Thoughts
These are just a few of the new capabilities in HighByte Intelligence Hub version 3.0. For details on all new features and fixes, check out the release notes. To see the software for yourself, please request a free trial or log in to the new HighByte account portal.
Rest assured, all the new capabilities in HighByte Intelligence Hub version 3.0 are included in the price of a license at no additional cost to our customers.
In the words of Tord van Delft at Goodtech: “With unlimited installations per site, we can scale both during development and production, without the expense and noise that other companies impose on their customers. We found ourselves having HighByte Intelligence Hub instances running everywhere because it was so cost efficient.”
Thank you to our community of engaged customers and partners whose input helped shape and improve this major release of the Intelligence Hub. We hope the release exceeds your expectations and helps you achieve your data operations strategy for 2023 and beyond.
Rest assured, all the new capabilities in HighByte Intelligence Hub version 3.0 are included in the price of a license at no additional cost to our customers.
In the words of Tord van Delft at Goodtech: “With unlimited installations per site, we can scale both during development and production, without the expense and noise that other companies impose on their customers. We found ourselves having HighByte Intelligence Hub instances running everywhere because it was so cost efficient.”
Thank you to our community of engaged customers and partners whose input helped shape and improve this major release of the Intelligence Hub. We hope the release exceeds your expectations and helps you achieve your data operations strategy for 2023 and beyond.
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