IoT & Connectivity Tips

Key Functional HighlightsThingWorx Manufacturing Apps enhancements Support for NI InsightCM connected to KEPServerEX as an aggregatorControls Advisor usability improvement to retrieve App Key for a specific KEPServerEX connectionAsset Advisor usability improvement for displaying alertsCompatibility ThingWorx 8.1.0KEPServerEX 6.2, 6.3KEPServerEX V6.1 and older as well as different OPC Servers (with Kepware OPC aggregator)DocumentationThingWorx Manufacturing Apps Setup and Configuration Guide ThingWorx Manufacturing Apps Customization GuideWhat’s New in ThingWorx Manufacturing Apps 8.1.0DownloadExtensions for ThingWorx Manufacturing Apps and Asset RemotingNote: this release announcement applies to the ThingWorx Manufacturing Apps Extensions 8.1.0. For the ThingWorx Manufacturing Apps Freemium (Express) 8.1.0 release notes, see this page:ThingWorx Manufacturing Apps 8.1 Freemium is Available for Download!

There are a lot of new and exciting changes included in ​ThingWorx 8.0.0, which is due out today, and no doubt, you'll want to get a test environment set up to try them out.  But there are a few changes that could impact your ability to get up and running with a new server that I wanted to share with everyone.IMPORTANT – Changes to Licensing in ThingWorx 8.0.0In ThingWorx 7.4.0, a new Licensing Subsystem was introduced, and the license file required was provided as part of the ThingWorx 7.4.0 platform download.  As of ThingWorx 8.0.0, the license.bin file will no longer be provided with the platform download, but will instead need to be downloaded from the PTC Licensing Tool on the PTC eSupport Portal.As part of the operating system specific Installing ThingWorx (OS) sections in the Installing ThingWorx 8.0 guide, additional steps have been added that outline how to use the PTC Licensing Tool to download and install the ThingWorx license file for your organization.The license

This script is provided as is and is not officially supported by PTC. Users are welcome to edit or change this script as desired.This script automates the installation steps outlined in the ThingWorx Installation Guide. If you are not familiar with these processes or are installing ThingWorx for the first time, it is recommended to refer to the guide for additional information.Requirements:  64-bit Linux: Ubuntu (all flavors) 14/15/16, Red Hat Enterprise Linux 6/7, or CentOS 6/7  Root privileges  Internet connection  A ThingWorx platform installation file for either H2 or PostgreSQL (available in the PTC downloads center https://support.ptc.com/appserver/cs/software_update/swupdate.jsp )  *NOTE: This script does not require a GUI and can be run in headless modeMinimal download option: The script will look in the working directory for pre-downloaded Java, Tomcat, and (for RHEL and CentOS) PostgreSQL installation files. If the installer detects one of the support

Procedure to configure a secure connection between Windchill and Thingworx server. Assuming Windchill and Thingworx are already configured with SSL, this video consists of detailed steps for setting up Thingworx and Windchill to trust each other.     For full-sized viewing, click on the YouTube link in the player controls.   Visit the Online Success Guide to access our Expert Session videos at any time as well as additional information about ThingWorx training and services.

Introduction to the base EMS connections and settings, what and how the websocket connections work, security, data transfer and bandwidth.     For full-sized viewing, click on the YouTube link in the player controls.   Visit the Online Success Guide to access our Expert Session videos at any time as well as additional information about ThingWorx training and services.

Introduction to the platform extensibility structures and options. Includes overview of setting up the eclipse plugin and build process, as well as install considerations and best practices.     For full-sized viewing, click on the YouTube link in the player controls.   Visit the Online Success Guide to access our Expert Session videos at any time as well as additional information about ThingWorx training and services.

This design session introduces a real-world product scenario along with requirements for developing a related IoT-based application. You will also be introduced to core ThingWorx terminology and concepts that will help to map out an efficient design plan for the model hierarchy.     For full-sized viewing, click on the YouTube link in the player controls.   Visit the Online Success Guide to access our Expert Session videos at any time as well as additional information about ThingWorx training and services.

This Expert Session consists of the general overview for the multitenancy and platform security. It  discusses the available security levels, necessary basic resources, as well as provides information on the system user, and also includes several examples on how-to. It’s assumed that the audience is familiar with the Composer and its navigation.     For full-sized viewing, click on the YouTube link in the player controls.   Visit the Online Success Guide to access our Expert Session videos at any time as well as additional information about ThingWorx training and services.

This Expert Session consists of the general overview for platform export and import. It discusses the available options for safely exporting and importing entities, data, and extensions. It also provides information on the use of exported entities during the system upgrading and/or moving from QA to production server.  It’s assumed that the audience is familiar with the Composer and its navigation.     For full-sized viewing, click on the YouTube link in the player controls.   Visit the Online Success Guide to access our Expert Session videos at any time as well as additional information about ThingWorx training and services.

Official name: DataStax Enterprise, sometimes referred as Cassandra.Note: DBA skills required, free self-paced training can be found here Training | DataStax The extension package can further be obtained through Technical Support.Thingworx 6.0 introduces DSE as a backend database scaling to much greater byte count, ad Neo4j performance limitations hit at 50Gbs. Some of the main reasons to consider DSE are:1. Elastic scalability -- Alows to easily add capacity online to accommodate more customers and more data when needed.2. Always on architecture -- Contains no single point of failure (as with traditional master/slave RDBMS's and other NoSQL solutions) resulting in continious availability for business-critical applications that can't afford to go down.3. Fast linear-scale performance -- Enables sub-second response times with linear scalability (double the throughput with two nodes, quadruple it with four, and so on) to deliver response time speeds.4. Flexible data storage -- Easily acc

Finally there is an article which combines all of the available resources on certificate configuration to better enable developers to complete their production-worthy edge devices. Please see the official PTC documentation located here. Please feel free to comment with any questions, comments, or feedback on this! Happy developing!

The following Expert Session videos are now available for viewing within the ThingWorx Community: ThingWorx Analytics Installation - This Expert Session will walk you through the complete installation of ThingWorx Analytics from the Prerequisites to Confirming the Installation is successful and all steps in between. The first half of the video gives a breakdown of the components and the process of the installation with the second half being an actual Demo of the Installation.     ThingWorx Analytics API Overview - This Expert Session is designed to help beginners get up and running with ThingWorx Analytics. It covers basic concepts like: What are APIs, how to configure the metadata file, and a live Demo that shows you how to interact and use ThingWorx Analytics in real time. This Expert Session would also be useful for experienced users who need a refresher course.   Decision Tree, ThingWorx Analytics Builder - This Expert Session reviews the concept of “Decision Trees”

This Expert Session will provide you with an in depth explanation behind how Signals are calculated in ThingWorx Analytics, what purpose they serve, and why we use them.  Some basic mathematical concepts are discussed so viewers will have a better idea of how ThingWorx Analytics operates behind the scenes.     For full-sized viewing, click on the YouTube link in the player controls.   Visit the Online Success Guide to access our Expert Session videos at any time as well as additional information about ThingWorx training and services.

This Expert Session goes over ways to identify and develop a successful use case for ThingWorx Analytics. The example use case presented here is on employee retention in a fictional company with the goal of maximizing employee retention . This presentation will provide you with all the fundamentals you need to develop your own ThingWorx Analytics use cases from the ground up.     For full-sized viewing, click on the YouTube link in the player controls.   Visit the Online Success Guide to access our Expert Session videos at any time as well as additional information about ThingWorx training and services.

This Expert Session reviews the concept of “Decision Trees” and the functionality that is available in ThingWorx Analytics Builder. First, you will learn how to create and upload a dataset in ThingWorx Analytics Builder.  After that, it shows you how to train a model and score on the model that was just generated. It then goes into detail on how the prediction learner "Decision Tree" operates and classifies inputs.     For full-sized viewing, click on the YouTube link in the player controls.   Visit the Online Success Guide to access our Expert Session videos at any time as well as additional information about ThingWorx training and services.

ThingWorx's JDBC extensions - Relational Database Management System and the JDBC Extensions allow ThingWorx to connect to variety of different databases. With that comes a natural question how and what sort of SQL statements could be executed via these extensions?Note:​​Importing the JDBC extensions i.e. the RDBMS and JDBC Extensions, creates a Database Template for that particular database. If you are working with RDBMS extension then Template of corresponding Database will be created with similar name e.g. importing the RDBMS Extension for Oracle 12 will create Template named OracleDBServer12. While importing the JDBC driver using the JDBC extension will create Template name based on the JDBC driver used or a custom name could be given.Following examples and SQL statements are adhering to Oracle's SQL*Plus standard, however these can be easily adapted to the type of RDBMS you intend to work with.TopicsHow to create SQL Service in ThingWorx entityTypes of SQL StatementsExamples on SQL

In the last while I've seen a few things which got me thinking about how value is created or unlocked from connected data.  Multiple components are required to create, send, store and manage the data created by edge devices, doing these things enables value to be unlocked, but what does it take to unlock the value?It was this ​article which first got me interested in considering this question.  In particular it was a section near the bottom of the article where the author describes a number of creative business use cases for car manufacturers which could be enabled by connected data.  If this author could come up with several creative and potentially valuable use case examples for one industry I started to wonder what other sorts of use cases could exist in other industries?  Could there be a series of use of use cases which a little variation be applied to different industries?The second article which further sparked my interest in where the value originates from,

Key Functional HighlightsThingWorx 8.1 covers the following areas of the product portfolio: ThingWorx Analytics, ThingWorx Utilities and ThingWorx Foundation which includes Core, Connection Server and Edge capabilities.Highlights of the release include:ThingWorx FoundationNext Generation Composer:Embedded Mashup Builder enables codeless development of web visualization.New ability to manage and push configurations for KEPServerEXNotifications:Create SMS and Email notifications natively in Next Generation ComposerSupport for localized and dynamic content with tokensProtocol Adapter Toolkit:Encrypted communication between edge devices and the Connector over HTTPS or WSS.Encrypted communication between the Connector and ThingWorx Core (WSS).Ability to define a mapping of outbound messages from ThingWorx Core using a Codec to an edge-bound message.Authentication of edge devices3rd Party Platform Connectivity: Azure IoT Connector v2.0§ Model data from Azure IoT using the Thing Model§ Utiliz

In this blog I will be inspecting the setup below, using the REST APIs exposed by the different components (log-analysis-free guaranteed).   The components are started in stages, and I will do some exploration between each stages : EMS only EMS + LSR 1 EMS + LSR 1 + LSR 2    The REST APIs   Edge MicroServer (EMS) REST API This API is very similar to the ThingWorx platform REST API, see REST APIs Supported by WS EMS for specificity. I will be monitoring the EMS using the LocalEms virtual Thing (EMS only) ThingWorx Platform REST API This is the well known ThingWorx Core REST API -  see REST API Core Concepts I will be monitoring the EMS, from the platform, using an EMSGateway thing. The EMSGateway exposes on the platform some of the LocalEms services (like GetEdgeThings). I'm also inspecting the remote properties / services / events exposed on the things using the RemoteThing::GetRemoteMetadata service. Lua Script Resource (LSR) REST API

This video covers the new features of ThingWorx Analytics Builder 8.1   Updated Link for access to this video: What's New in ThingWorx Analytics Builder 8.1

We are pleased to announce that the Expert Sessions video series is now available in the ThingWorx Community. We are kicking off this availability with a new space dedicated to these helpful technical videos. In the first round of videos, we are highlighting two ThingWorx Foundation videos that are designed to provide foundational knowledge to get you up and running on the ThingWorx IoT platform.New Expert Sessions Available NowThingWorx Foundation - Installation is an introduction to installing the ThingWorx platform. The video includes information on the environment, prerequisites, and configuration steps when installing ThingWorx, and includes walkthroughs of installing with H2 and PostgreSQL databases, an introduction and demonstration of the Linux installation script, solutions to common installation problems and more.ThingWorx Foundation - Scalability talks about platform sizing with dependency on the type of environment and correlated scalability options. The video educates you

Parquet Data Format used in ThingWorx Analytics  Starting ThingWorx Analytics Version 8.1 Data storage will no longer require the installation of a PostgreSQL database. Instead, uploaded CSV data is converted to the optimized  Apache Parquet format and stored directly in the file system. This Blog explains some the features of Apache Parquet justifying this transition in ThingWorx Analytics Data Storage. featuresWhat is Apache Parquet: Apache Parquet is a column-oriented data store of the Apache Hadoop ecosystem. It is compatible with most of the data processing frameworks in the Hadoop environment. It provides efficient data compression and encoding schemes with enhanced performance to handle complex data in bulk.Below is an illustration of the Columnar Storage model: Apache Parquet Features and Benefits:Apache Parquet is implemented using the record shredding and assembly algorithm taking into account the complex data structures that can be used to store the data. Apache Pa

Licensing summary, installing 8.1: - Now instance specific license used which prevents license sharing and protects our intellectual property further - 2 paths for getting up and running with a license:          -Connected: platform-settings configuration only          -Disconnected: text file generated, self-serve creation from PTC support portal, license_capability_response.bin generated to be placed in platform folder   Connected / Disconnected mode LicensingSubsystem::GetLicenseState returns : UNINITIALIZED in disconnected mode LICENSE_EXISTS in connected mode   User Journey Refer to Licensing ThingWorx 8.1 and Later for specific instructions for generating a license for your instance   NOTE: Each instance needs a valid license file to be running.   Troubleshooting: - If any misconfiguration or connection failures occur, error messages will be thrown to Application log Example:

First we need to Understand below terms:Quantitative Variable: A quantitative variable is naturally measured as a number for which meaningful arithmetic operations make sense. Examples: Height, age, crop yield, GPA, salary, temperature, area, air pollution index (measured in parts per million), etc.Categorical variable: Any variable that is not quantitative is categorical. Categorical variables take a value that is one of several possible categories. As naturally measured, categorical variables have no numerical meaning. Examples: Hair color, gender, field of study, college attended, political affiliation, status of disease infection.Ordinal Variables: An ordinal variable is a categorical variable for which the possible values are ordered. Ordinal variables can be considered “in between” categorical and quantitative variables.Example: Educational level might be categorized as    1: Elementary school education    2: High school graduate    3:

In this video we are going through a few steps to ensure the installation process went fine.   Updated Link for access to this video:  Validating a ThingWorx Analytics Server 8.1 Installation