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In our interactions with PTC customers we often learn they have previously performed Analytics modeling in Python, Matlab, R, or even built home grown analyses in languages such as Java or C++. As expected, when adopting an Industrial Innovation Platform such as ThingWorx that also has its own ThingWorx Analytics module, customers do not want to reimplement everything from scratch and would rather integrate their previous work in the Smart Applications built in ThingWorx, leveraging a combination of their existing toolset together with ThingWorx Analytics modeling. That is certainly possible and there are multiple ways to do that. In this article we will focus on several general ways to make that happen, but it is important to keep in mind that language specific approaches are also possible and we are happy to discuss those in the specific context of the customer.
Here are five different ways to bring existing Analytics into ThingWorx:
If the task is to reuse an existing predictive model developed in a language such as Python/R/Matlab, typically one can export that model in PMML (Predictive Model Markup Language), an xml format, and import it in ThingWorx Analytics using the AnalyticsServer_ResultsThing -> UploadModel service. Libraries such as sklearn2pmml & r2pmml can be utilized towards that goal. The imported model can then be used in the same fashion as a ThingWorx Analytics developed model to power smart applications built in ThingWorx. If the Analysis involves more complex tasks than Predictive Modeling, such as custom data normalizations or non-standard Machine Learning models or home grown algorithms, one can use the options below.
When choosing an integration option, customers need to carefully balance complexity of integration, constraints of their architecture, Analytics modeling complexity, as well as end user consumption requirements.
Thanks, @sniculescu , this post answers some questoins that have been bugging me for a while.
Regarding the first point, the PMML model... I wonder if there are customers who develop models in some ML framework and then import / reuse it in Thingworx for production usage? I.e are there real-word use cases / examples of this functionality, for complex models / datasets?
Yes, there are such instances. However, in these cases, because the pmml model import / Python integration into ThingWorx is a very simple step, the Analytics use case is handled by the customer, rather than involving the PTC Customer Success team.