IoT Tips

  Hello, IIoT Developers!   9.0 is out—let’s dive right into what’s new with Composer and Mashup Builder. (If you haven’t already checked out what’s new in 9.0 with active-active clustering, be sure to check out this tech tip.) We have a lot of new functionality that we can’t wait for you to start using, so without further ado, let’s begin!   Mashup Builder   In 9.0, we continue to make great advancements to our Mashup Builder and visualization toolset. We’re all about productive developers building the coolest IIoT apps! Mashup in 9.0 with new Line Chart widgets!   Undo/Redo   Ever spent a good half hour arranging a layout, making some data bindings, adding some styles, and once you view the Mashup, you decide you aren’t quite happy with your last few tweaks? The panic sets in when you forget exactly what you changed, and you don’t want to lose all of your edits. What is a developer to do? In older versions of ThingWorx, you might cancel without saving your edits or you might try to surgically get back to a good state. Either way, you were not a happy developer.   ThingWorx 9.0 will make you happy again. All actions in the Mashup are now tracked by an undo/redo buffer. Buttons are now available in the toolbar to help you revert actions. An action history drop-down is also available if you want to undo or redo a few jumps at once. Sometimes, it’s the little things!   Undo and Redo actions now available in the Mashup Builder.   Mobile Settings   For a few releases now, we’ve been upgrading our visualization toolset and examining ways we can be better for desktop and mobile experiences. It starts with our latest layout engine/editor introduced in 8.4 and with new Polymer-based, responsiveness “designed-in” web components introduced in 8.4, 8.5, and 9.0. For the more adventurous folks out there, you can also use Custom CSS to do media queries and influence your layouts based on the viewport settings. There are also custom resolutions and screen orientations available in the Mashup Builder toolbar itself so you can view your content in design mode with each of those targets in mind.   In 9.0, we now have introduced a new Mobile Settings configuration editor on the Mashup. This allows you to define for mobile browsers your scaling and width as well as your height and zoom settings. There are even iOS-specific settings for shortcuts and the status bar.  Mobile Settings Editor and iPhone view of a 9.0 Mashup.   New Configure Bindings Dialog   The heart of any application is the data, and how it is leveraged in the UI. For Mashups, there many good ways to do that with our drag-and-drop functionality or our Bindings panel. But in 9.0, we have completely revamped the Configure Bindings Dialog. You’ll quickly notice when you open the new dialog that it has a more usable interface with more screen real estate to explore services, properties, sources and targets. There is now a good separation between the Widgets, Data and Function sources, which makes things easier to locate and build. You’ll also see, if you’ve made bindings already, the complete map of bindings for your context. New search enhancements and target bindings chip-based filters are also now added.   New Configure Bindings Dialog Another cool feature is that the bindings graph in the dialog will also show you any circular references you may have inadvertently created. If you can see in the diagram below, the red circle icon with a number 1 inside of it—this is almost always a bug, so we may as well tell you about it! New Circular references checking! New Web Components   If you look at almost any IIoT application, you’re almost sure to see a chart. IIoT decisions are always centered around looking at telemetry and KPIs at specific moments of time, events, history, and future projections. ThingWorx has new charts in 9.0 for Line, Bar, and Schedule. They look sharp, they are powerful, and are a true upgrade over the former ThingWorx charts.   Here are some highlights. All are based on D3 framework and follow the PTC Design System. The Line chart also supports sub types of Run, Step, Area, Streamgraph and Scatter plot. The Bar chart also supports a column-based view. The Schedule chart is a great way to visualize downtime events, production orders, machine states, or device alarms. All charts feature responsive layout, advanced performance and data sampling, tooltips, multiple series support, multiple orientations for legends and axis labels, and plenty of styling and data configurations. They also all have great zooming capability for larger data sets including horizontal and vertical pan, drag/lasso zoom, interval controls, range zoom and zoom slider controls. Line Charts with filters, zoom sliders, and markers   Bar Charts with zoom sliders, horizontal and vertical orientations, and configurable legends   Schedule Chart with drilldown and hover tooltips Other Coolness   The team was busy with these highlighted features, but there is so much more in 9.0! For Mashup, we also added: Improved tooltip and icon hover support for all web component-based widgets Accessibility improvements for keyboard navigation and focus New category filters for widget property configuration editors New data tools panel New context menu options New theming options for layout containers Composer For application development outside of the Mashup area, you’ll also notice some new changes in the Composer tool. One of our favorites is the new navigation panels. If you’ve been with ThingWorx for a few releases, you’ve seen many redesigns and updates to the Composer interface. We are constantly evaluating and testing this interface’s design with users to make it a highly productive and intuitive environment. You’ll now see much more horizontal real estate in the Composer because we’ve moved the top header bar into a new left-hand navigation. We’ve also improved the grid resizing in the entity and other list views in the interface to work better with larger result sets. New Composer Layout with updated left-hand navigation One more bonus feature to highlight! We now have quick copy buttons in common places in the interface where you might want to copy entity names or application keys. Just click and that text is in your clipboard. Very handy for searching or making bindings!   Quick copy buttons on entity names     As you can see, plenty of awesome new features and upgrades in the ThingWorx 9.0 application development tools. We also have a brand-new visual SDK available in the 9.0 release so that you can make your own widgets with Polymer and import them into the Mashup Builder. Stay tuned for another Ask Kaya tech tip soon on the SDK.   Like what you see? Have a question? Drop us a line in the comments!   Stay Connected! Kaya  

  It’s here! It’s happening! ThingWorx 9.0 released today!   Unleash the Power of Now and leverage exciting new features like: Improved performance and higher availability via active-active clustering Faster, more streamlined development with: New widgets like line, bar & schedule charts Undo & redo functionality in Mashup Builder (look out for an upcoming Ask Kaya tech tip) New Mashup mobile settings Simpler management of entities and applications: Improved auditing scale & usability Ability to group entities via Thing Groups Ability to deploy apps built prior to 8.5 with Solution Central And more—like: Confidence model training Delegated authorization for Flow [Navigate] Component-based app development for custom production use apps (upgrade-safe) And even more—the list goes on and on. Check out the full list of new functionality in the 9.0 release notes and discover our What’s New page.   Access 9.0 under “ThingWorx Foundation” on the PTC Downloads Page and unleash its power today! As you get started, check out the ThingWorx Help Center for guidance.   Enjoy 9.0 and let us know what you think below! Kaya

  Hi, everyone!   In previous tech tips, we’ve introduced 9.0’s biggest feature, active-active clustering, and covered some of the main architectural components. Today, I’ll cover some other architectural configurations and the flexibility that active-active clustering provides to meet your IoT deployment needs.   Deployment Flexibility With Active-Active Clustering, ThingWorx allows you to achieve the highest availability of your IIoT system while still retaining the high degree of deployment flexibility that ThingWorx is known for.   It’s important to emphasize flexibility not only in where you deploy ThingWorx, but also in how  you deploy it. Flexibility is embedded in the ThingWorx architecture to suit your deployment needs. Let’s look at two interesting options.   Cost-Efficient Deployment The first example is deploying ThingWorx in a cost-efficient architecture for smaller or cost-sensitive deployments. Instead of each component on its own separate VM or box, ThingWorx Connection Server, ThingWorx Foundation Server, ZooKeeper, and Ignite are all installed on the same box.   With three boxes in parallel, the system still achieves high availability while reducing deployment costs by minimizing the number of servers utilized. A minimum of three servers is needed to achieve an odd number of instances required by ZooKeeper while still providing redundancy.   In order to optimize for cost while still providing high availability, there are a few factors to consider with this deployment. In this configuration, Ignite is run within the same JVM as ThingWorx Foundation, rather than on a different server. While this does reduce the overall footprint, Ignite will consume additional memory, sharing the resources with the ThingWorx Foundation platform. Since ThingWorx Connection Server is run on the same VM as ThingWorx Foundation Server, this introduces socket limitations, which can restrict the maximum number of connected devices.     In short, the example above illustrates how, while being in an active-active clustered environment, you still retain the deployment flexibility to optimize for your deployment needs. In this scenario, the architecture is optimized for a leaner, more cost-effective deployment at the expense of numbers of connections and memory.   Now, let’s walk through some common use cases where ThingWorx is deployed on premise on VMs or baremetal to support use cases that require a balance of availability and scalability at an affordable cost. A few of these examples include: On-premise deployment of ThingWorx Foundation to support a dedicated factory production line on a plant floor to improve its connected manufacturing operations. VM based on-site deployment of ThingWorx Foundation to support IoT applications for a Smart Building scenario. Smart Ship deployments managing key ship operations where ThingWorx is deployed on a ship and sends data intermittently to private data centers running ThingWorx on shore through a satellite network leveraging ThingWorx federation technology. A failover-proof redundant setup required to capture key service metrics for medical equipment for predictive failures and maintenance where ThingWorx is deployed in hospital premises. OEM Deployment with Common Components The second example covers how active-active clustering architectural components can be shared across multiple clusters to reduce the cost and complexity of deployment. This can include scenarios where a large deployment spans multiple sites, geographies or end customers.   In this deployment, there are two ThingWorx clusters that share a common ZooKeeper cluster and database layer. Within each cluster, both the Connection Server and ThingWorx Foundation with Ignite running as embedded are deployed on a VM.   For the shared components, proper separation measures must be taken to ensure security. For ZooKeeper, separate namespaces and authentication from the clients are required. For the shared database layer, each cluster must have a unique schema, a separate shared file system and separate user credentials with database-level isolation. Please note that with a large shared database across tenants, rather than a dedicated database for each tenant of HA cluster, there is a risk of impacting performance and availability of other tenants due to issues caused by one of the shared ones.     This architecture is optimized for a larger deployment comprised of multiple ThingWorx clusters requiring separation between the clusters, while still allowing the provider to share a common infrastructure for cost reduction.   Again, let’s walk through another few common use cases, including: A ThingWorx OEM hosting multiple ThingWorx Foundation instances in their managed data center or public cloud to offer applications with further customization abilities to their end users. In this case, an OEM vendor can offer multiple ThingWorx clusters in active-active cluster mode with shared pieces of infrastructure across multiple tenants. A ThingWorx enterprise customer looking to build and host different ThingWorx-based applications in their IT data center where each application is powered by an individual active-active cluster satisfying specific digital transformation use cases across the enterprise value chain, including those related to engineering, product, sales, marketing, supply chain, partners, service and support. A ThingWorx factory customer looking to host multiple ThingWorx applications from their main regional factory IT data center to cater to the IoT needs of different factories located in surrounding geographic regions. In this case, a customer could dedicate one HA cluster to each factory to enable that factory/site to power multiple IoT applications efficiently.   These two configurations are some of the lesser known—yet equally powerful—deployments of this new architecture. Again, flexibility of our deployment architecture is one of the key superpowers of the ThingWorx platform. And, the active-active fun doesn’t stop there! Be on the lookout for an upcoming LiveWorx session titled Active-Active Clustering with ThingWorx 9.0  (Session ID: IP1117B), future tech tips like this one, and, of course, the GA release of ThingWorx 9.0 (targeted for June 2020) where you can take advantage of this new functionality!   Let us know what you think in the comments!   Stay connected, Kaya      

  Whether your ThingWorx instances are deployed on premise, in the cloud or a hybrid of the two, I’d like you to imagine: You have a super cool app. You want to deploy it securely. You’re not a security expert. What do you do? How do you know how to securely deploy your app? Where do you go for security best practices? Introducing the new ThingWox Secure Deployment Hub!   The ThingWorx Secure Deployment Hub is a new section of our support site that will introduce you to the ThingWorx security landscape and direct you to security resources pertaining to the Edge, the platform and beyond.   From permissions and provisioning, to subsystems and SSO, the hub is packed with our recommendations and best practices for you to deploy your app in a secure fashion.   Happy deploying! Kaya

Race to the finish line of IoT app development with ThingWorx Edge!     Hi everyone,   Today’s post comes fully packed with an intro to our ThingWorx Edge strategy. Learn how to connect your machine data to ThingWorx, how our SDKs work, why you’d want to use them and how you can deploy agents.   To learn more about the Edge with ThingWorx, I spoke with Shravan. When Shravan’s not following Formula 1, learning about the latest trends in AI or playing cricket, he’s leading our development teams as the PM for the Edge. Check out what he had to say:   Kaya: How can I connect my machine data to ThingWorx through a protocol that the platform does not natively support?  Shravan: If you’re looking to connect your machine data to ThingWorx through a proprietary protocol and you require a 1:1 connection with the platform, we have two paths you can take. You can either: Utilize PTC’s Edge MicroServer (EMS) out-of-the-box solution. This is a stand-alone application that you can configure to send property updates, files, etc. to your instance of the ThingWorx Platform. It’s almost like a little mailman. Or, if you want to build connectivity into your own Edge devices, you can take advantage of PTC’s Edge Software Development Kits (SDKs). We offer three SDKs—C, .NET and Java—to enable you to build connectivity into your own custom application.   Kaya: And how can I connect my machine data to ThingWorx if my protocol is known? Shravan: Alternatively, if you’re a customer that communicates over a known protocol, then we’d recommend using our ThingWorx Industrial Connectivity product, also known as KEPServerEX or ThingWorx Kepware Edge.   For more background, I’ll go into a little more depth: KEPServerEX works in a Windows environment. It leverages OPC and IT-centric communication protocols (SNMP, ODBC and web services). It has more than 150+ drivers that help to establish stable and secure communication channels to devices, PLCs, Gateways, etc. ThingWorx Kepware Edge, launched during LiveWorx 2019, provides the most valuable features of KEPServerEX to be deployed in Linux-based gateways, starting with three key drivers: Modbus Ethernet, Allen-Bradley ControlLogix Ethernet and Siemens TCP/IP.   Kaya: Okay, great. Let’s cover SDKs first. In one sentence, can you explain how our SDKs work?   Shravan: The SDKs provide services for establishing a secure WebSocket connection (AlwaysON) to the ThingWorx Platform so that you can perform functions such as property updates, file transfers, tunneling, software content management (SCM), etc.   Kaya: At a high level, why do SDKs leverage AlwaysON? Shravan: Typically, transferring data to a server in IoT would require leveraging either REST web services, which has high connection overhead, works over HTTP or using MQTT, which requires a server and additional open ports.   So, an ideal connection should have three key features as a minimum: Stays continuously on. Is always ready to receive data and execute commands. Should also use existing open ports on firewall.   ThingWorx Edge SDKs provide this ideal connection though “Always On” protocol, which is based on WebSockets.   Kaya: What are the top three things a developer can do with the SDKs?  Shravan: Here are my top three. Thing property updates: Events can subscribe to changes in property values and in aspects of properties. File transfer: Browse remote directories and files on an instance of ThingWorx platform and enable bidirectional file transfer between an edge device and an instance of the platform. Tunneling: Allows users to establish secure, firewall-friendly application tunnels for applications that use TCP, such as VNC or SSH.   Kaya: How can you deploy SDK-based agents to devices? Shravan: You can deploy the agent in two main ways. One where the agent lives adjacent to the control and monitoring application of the machine and the other where the agent is directly integrated to the control and monitoring app of the machine.   Kaya: Anything else you want to mention?  Shravan: The Edge SDKs support a framework for adding additional functionality to the SDKs. This is known as the Edge Extension Framework. This allows additional functionality to be provided as installable services, which allows them to be extended in a manageable way while keeping the core SDK as compact and efficient as possible. Software Content Management (SCM) was the first commercially available Edge Extension.   - - -   This concludes the first installment of our series on Edge. Be on the lookout for deeper dives into KEPServerEX, SDKs, ThingWorx Kepware Edge and AlwaysOn.   Reach out if you have any questions.   Stay connected, Kaya                     P.S. For everyone who’s followed me for the past year, I’d just like to extend a huge thanks, as “Ask Kaya” has just turned one! It’s been a great first year and I’m excited for year two!

  The scenario: Your company has settled on Azure as a cloud platform and you are currently using Azure IoT Edge as your connectivity strategy. You need a quick way to build IoT applications with your Azure devices. You’re looking for industry-proven and time-saving features like Mashup visualization, built-in connectivity to enterprise systems (like SAP or Oracle) with ThingWorx Flow, secure and scalable file transfer to your Azure-connected devices and the ability to create augmented reality (AR) experiences with Vuforia Studio. All of these options are available to you thanks to the ThingWorx-Azure IoT Hub Connector; it’s like the ice cream truck driving by on a hot summer day.   (If you’re wondering why we selected Azure as our preferred infrastructure, check out my previous interview with Neal, a Worldwide ThingWorx Center of Excellence Principal Lead here at PTC.)   I sat down with Ankit, a ThingWorx Product Manager, this week to learn more about the ThingWorx-Azure IoT Hub Connector. When Ankit’s not learning new hobbies like how to surf, snowboard or bike, he’s supporting our Microsoft partnership by enhancing and implementing ThingWorx-Azure functionality. Here’s how our conversation went:   Kaya: What is the Azure IoT Hub? Ankit: The Azure IoT Hub acts as a central message router for bi-directional communication between the cloud (and your ThingWorx applications) and your connected devices. The Azure IoT Hub securely connects, monitors and manages billions of devices. It is an open and flexible cloud platform as a service that supports open-source SDKs and multiple protocols. With ThingWorx, we enable you to authenticate user access per device to ensure your IoT solutions remain secure.   Kaya: I understand your team has created the ThingWorx-Azure IoT Hub Connector. Can you explain what it is and what it does? Ankit: The Azure IoT Hub Connector is an extension that is imported into ThingWorx for a developer to connect the Azure IoT Hub to ThingWorx. This helps ThingWorx to leverage the security and scalability of Azure while retaining the ThingWorx domain expertise to provide fast time to value.   The Connector is built on the ThingWorx Connection Server core. What it essentially does is convert JSON objects from Azure IoT Hub into ThingWorx property types (and vice versa) so that the digital twin data of an Azure device can be native to ThingWorx.   Since the Connector is built on the ThingWorx Connection Server, it is horizontally scalable and leverages features such as health check, metrics (message count and size, property writes) and logging.   Kaya: What was the challenge developers were facing that led us to create the Azure IoT Hub Connector? Ankit: There was no easy way for a developer to use ThingWorx to represent an Azure IoT device. Users weren’t easily able to take advantage of ThingWorx services and functionality on their Azure IoT devices, which were inherently connected to the Azure IoT Hub. Similarly, ThingWorx users were not able to take advantage of Azure services in a “configure-not-code” fashion in ThingWorx.   Kaya: How does the Connector solve this problem to enable you to integrate the two platforms and device models for a better combined solution? Ankit: Once you have an Azure device represented as a “Thing” in ThingWorx, you can use all the features and capabilities of ThingWorx Composer, Mashup Builder, etc. to build applications using the data from that Azure device.   Kaya: That’s pretty great. Ankit: Thanks, agreed. In the next version of the Connector, we’ll integrate more closely with Azure, such that our developers can leverage Azure services as well via ThingWorx, instead of building those services from scratch on Azure all on their own. For example, developers will be able to send software content, like firmware updates, to an Azure device without writing any code on Azure. All of this can be done on ThingWorx using Azure components like Azure IoT Edge Runtime.   Kaya: Awesome. In the meantime, what are the top two or three things a developer can do with the Azure IoT Hub Connector today? Ankit: Today, developers can take advantage of ingress and egress processing as well as file transfer. I’ll explain what these mean. Ingress Processing: Azure IoT devices (i.e. devices that are running Azure SDKs) send messages to the Azure IoT Hub. These messages are typically values of device properties (e.g. temperature). The Azure IoT Hub Connector “listens” for these messages, translates them and passes them to the ThingWorx platform. Egress Processing: Egress messages are messages that arrive from ThingWorx and are pushed to the Azure IoT Hub; an example might be pushing property updates to an Azure IoT device. File Transfer: The Azure IoT Hub Connector supports transferring files between Azure IoT devices and an Azure storage container (i.e. Blob store). An Azure storage container is represented by a ‘FileRepository’ Thing within ThingWorx. This enables developers to transfer files from an Azure storage container to ThingWorx and vice versa.   Kaya: What are two exciting features planned for a future release of the Connector? Ankit: Two exciting features planned for July include software content management (or SCM) and compatibility with ThingWorx Asset Advisor. Software Content Management (SCM): In our next release, we plan to have support for SCM from ThingWorx to an Azure IoT Edge device (an Azure IoT device with IoT Edge Runtime) via Azure IoT Hub. SCM allows users to transfer a variety of content like configuration settings, operating system patches and software updates and/or patches to a software agent on your Azure devices. SCM also allows you to manage your remote assets and keep them patched, secure and up-to-date with the latest features without having to dispatch a technician. This helps to reduce cost and complexity of software distribution and installation. Compatibility with ThingWorx Asset Advisor: Also planned for our next release, you will be able to readily manage Azure IoT devices directly through Asset Advisor to see key device alerts and warnings. This makes it even easier for you to leverage Asset Advisor to rapidly enable remote monitoring of your Azure devices.   Kaya: Exciting stuff. For our readers not familiar with Asset Advisor, check out this episode of my “ThingWorx on Air” podcast to understand what Asset Advisor is and how it works. Okay, next question. Do you have an example of a customer using Azure IoT Hub? Ankit: Absolutely. Colfax, an industrial manufacturing company, is using Azure IoT Hub to improve the efficiency of its IoT efforts across the enterprise. You should check out our case study on Colfax if you haven’t seen it yet.   Kaya: Where should I as a developer go if I want to learn more about the Azure IoT Hub Connector or Azure in general? Ankit: Depending on what you’re looking for, I’d recommend you check out the Help Center for technical guidance or the ThingWorx Azure IoT Hub Connector Release Notes, v. 2.0.0 for release updates.   Kaya: Finally, where can I go to download the ThingWorx Azure IoT Hub? Ankit: You can download it from the PTC Marketplace. Enjoy! Readers, let me know what you think about the Azure IoT Hub Connector in the comments below and reach out with any questions. While we’re excited to deliver what we have planned, our release content may change. In the meantime, for updates, tips and tricks and relevant info, stay connected!

  You’ve seen him before. You’ve heard him before. Fans around the globe can’t get enough of him. He’s…   ...Joe Biron—our CTO of IoT!   Hear Joe share his thoughts on the future of the industrial IoT with ThingWorx in Episode 03 of our “ThingWorx on Air” podcast!   Any questions? Just Ask Kaya.   Stay connected!

Distributed Timer and Scheduler Execution in a ThingWorx High Availability (HA) Cluster Written by Desheng Xu and edited by Mike Jasperson    Overview Starting with the 9.0 release, ThingWorx supports an “active-active” high availability (or HA) configuration, with multiple nodes providing redundancy in the event of hardware failures as well as horizontal scalability for workloads that can be distributed across the cluster.   In this architecture, one of the ThingWorx nodes is elected as the “singleton” (or lead) node of the cluster.  This node is responsible for managing the execution of all events triggered by timers or schedulers – they are not distributed across the cluster.   This design has proved challenging for some implementations as it presents a potential for a ThingWorx application to generate imbalanced workload if complex timers and schedulers are needed.   However, your ThingWorx applications can overcome this limitation, and still use timers and schedulers to trigger workloads that will distribute across the cluster.  This article will demonstrate both how to reproduce this imbalanced workload scenario, and the approach you can take to overcome it.   Demonstration Setup   For purposes of this demonstration, a two-node ThingWorx cluster was used, similar to the deployment diagram below:   Demonstrating Event Workload on the Singleton Node   Imagine this simple scenario: You have a list of vendors, and you need to process some logic for one of them at random every few seconds.   First, we will create a timer in ThingWorx to trigger an event – in this example, every 5 seconds.     Next, we will create a helper utility that has a task that will randomly select one of the vendors and process some logic for it – in this case, we will simply log the selected vendor in the ThingWorx ScriptLog.     Finally, we will subscribe to the timer event, and call the helper utility:     Now with that code in place, let's check where these services are being executed in the ScriptLog.     Look at the PlatformID column in the log… notice that that the Timer and the helper utility are always running on the same node – in this case Platform2, which is the current singleton node in the cluster.   As the complexity of your helper utility increases, you can imagine how workload will become unbalanced, with the singleton node handling the bulk of this timer-driven workload in addition to the other workloads being spread across the cluster.   This workload can be distributed across multiple cluster nodes, but a little more effort is needed to make it happen.   Timers that Distribute Tasks Across Multiple ThingWorx HA Cluster Nodes   This time let’s update our subscription code – using the PostJSON service from the ContentLoader entity to send the service requests to the cluster entry point instead of running them locally.       const headers = { "Content-Type": "application/json", "Accept": "application/json", "appKey": "INSERT-YOUR-APPKEY-HERE" }; const url = "https://testcluster.edc.ptc.io/Thingworx/Things/DistributeTaskDemo_HelperThing/services/TimerBackend_Service"; let result = Resources["ContentLoaderFunctions"].PostJSON({ proxyScheme: undefined /* STRING */, headers: headers /* JSON */, ignoreSSLErrors: undefined /* BOOLEAN */, useNTLM: undefined /* BOOLEAN */, workstation: undefined /* STRING */, useProxy: undefined /* BOOLEAN */, withCookies: undefined /* BOOLEAN */, proxyHost: undefined /* STRING */, url: url /* STRING */, content: {} /* JSON */, timeout: undefined /* NUMBER */, proxyPort: undefined /* INTEGER */, password: undefined /* STRING */, domain: undefined /* STRING */, username: undefined /* STRING */ });   Note that the URL used in this example - https://testcluster.edc.ptc.io/Thingworx - is the entry point of the ThingWorx cluster.  Replace this value to match with your cluster’s entry point if you want to duplicate this in your own cluster.   Now, let's check the result again.   Notice that the helper utility TimerBackend_Service is now running on both cluster nodes, Platform1 and Platform2.   Is this Magic?  No!  What is Happening Here?   The timer or scheduler itself is still being executed on the singleton node, but now instead of the triggering the helper utility locally, the PostJSON service call from the subscription is being routed back to the cluster entry point – the load balancer.  As a result, the request is routed (usually round-robin) to any available cluster nodes that are behind the load balancer and reporting as healthy.   Usually, the load balancer will be configured to have a cookie-based affinity - the load balancer will route the request to the node that has the same cookie value as the request.  Since this PostJSON service call is a RESTful call, any cookie value associated with the response will not be attached to the next request.  As a result, the cookie-based affinity will not impact the round-robin routing in this case.   Considerations to Use this Approach   Authentication: As illustrated in the demo, make sure to use an Application Key with an appropriate user assigned in the header. You could alternatively use username/password or a token to authenticate the request, but this could be less ideal from a security perspective.   App Deployment: The hostname in the URL must match the hostname of the cluster entry point.  As the URL of your implementation is now part of your code, if deploy this code from one ThingWorx instance to another, you would need to modify the hostname/port/protocol in the URL.   Consider creating a variable in the helper utility which holds the hostname/port/protocol value, making it easier to modify during deployment.   Firewall Rules: If your load balancer has firewall rules which limit the traffic to specific known IP addresses, you will need to determine which IP addresses will be used when a service is invoked from each of the ThingWorx cluster nodes, and then configure the load balancer to allow the traffic from each of these public IP address.   Alternatively, you could configure an internal IP address endpoint for the load balancer and use the local /etc/hosts name resolution of each ThingWorx node to point to the internal load balancer IP, or register this internal IP in an internal DNS as the cluster entry point.

To simplify the development of IIoT applications and solutions on the ThingWorx platform, we introduce the concept of Building Blocks. The intent of Building Blocks is to ease the creation of your own solutions and customization of PTC’s solutions. These Building Blocks are domain specific business logic pre-made for reusability, which means you won’t need to build from scratch on ThingWorx and can accelerate your time to value. What do we mean by Building Blocks? Building Blocks are premade components that enable modular software development. They are reusable, replaceable packages of functionality that can be connected into an architecture framework. Building Blocks allow for quicker development and customization of solutions and applications. What are the different types of Building Blocks?   Connectors  Leverage the same connectors we use for PTC solutions for better overall application performance and seamless transfer of data from disparate devices and systems. Identify the devices and systems you would like to monitor and let the connector do the rest.   Domain Models  Incorporate behavior and data from your devices and systems into a conceptual model of the domain, which is prepackaged based on common use cases. You can also leverage our out of the box models to connect and build dependencies between domains.   Business Logic  Encode real-world business rules that determine how data can be created, stored, and changed. Create KPIs for your devices and systems with these rules and create alerts based on your unique parameters.   UI  Construct widgets to view or analyze key data points in a graphical user interface that you can customize and leverage to extend functionality. Created with manufacturing and service use cases in mind, UI are predesigned to make it easy to view and understand data.   Building Blocks build upon the ThingWorx platform and are the base of all of PTC’s current and future solutions. We will continue to discuss Building Blocks in future posts, but in the meantime: How will you leverage building blocks in your own solutions? Is there more you want to know?   Stay connected, Rachel  

We will host a live Expert Session: "Top 5 Thingworx environment monitoring best practices" on March 25th, 10h00 EST.   Please find below the description of the expert session and the registration link.   Expert Session: Top 5 Thingworx environment monitoring best practices Date and Time: March 25th, 10h00 EST Duration: 1 hour Host: Tori Firewind, Tim Atwood and Dave Bernbeck from Enterprise Deployment Center - Enterprise Deployment Center Registration Here: https://www.ptc.com/en/resources/iiot/webcast/top-5-thingworx-monitoring-best-practices    In this session, we will be reviewing the main monitoring practices to keep a heathy environment and discuss the main issues from the audience. Bring your questions!.   Existing Recorded sessions can be found on support portal using the keyword ‘Expert Sessions’. You can also suggest topics for upcoming sessions using this small form.   Here are some recorded sessions that might be of your interest. You can find recordings for the full library of webinars using the keyword ‘Expert Sessions’ in PTC support portal search   Thingworx Active Active Clustering This session will cover the main aspects of the High Availability Clustering feature launched with the ThingWorx 9.0 release.   Recoding Link Upgrade to Thingworx 9 – How to Plan / Evaluate Impacts This session highlights the key points you should evaluate to properly plan your upgrade to Thingworx 9. Recording Link Top 5 items to check for Thingworx Performance Troubleshooting How to troubleshoot performance issues in a Thingworx Environment? Here we cover the top 5 investigation steps that will help you understand the source of your environment issues and allow better communication with PTC Technical Support     Recording Link

I've had a lot of questions over the years working with Azure IoT, Kepware, and ThingWorx that I really struggled getting answers to. I was always grateful when someone took the time to help me understand, and now it is time to repay the favour.   People ask me many things about Azure (in a ThingWorx context), and one of the common ones has been about MQTT communications from Kepware to ThingWorx using IoT Hub. Recently the topic has come up again as more and more of the ThingWorx expert community start to work with Azure IoT. Today, I took the time to build, test, validate, and share an approach and utilities to do this in cases where the Azure Industrial IoT OPC UA integration is overkill or simply a step later in the project plan. Enjoy!   End to end Integration of Kepware to ThingWorx using MQTT over Azure IoT (YoutTube 45 minute deep-dive)   ThingWorx entities for import (ThingWorx 9.0)   This approach can be quite good for a simple demo if you have a Kepware Integrator or Kepware Enterprise license, but the use of IoT Gateway for many servers and tags can be quite costly.   Those looking to leverage Azure IoT Hub for MQTT integration to ThingWorx would likely also find this recorded session and shared utilities quite helpful.   Cheers, Greg

  Hello everyone!   We’re back with Episode 08 of ThingWorx on Air! In this episode, I sit down with Ryan Servais, one of our High Availability (HA) experts on the ThingWorx product management team. We continue our HA discussion from previous Ask Kaya tech tips and cover some frequently asked questions like what are the benefits of active-active clustering? How does active-active clustering enable horizontal scale? How can I get started? Brand-new to active-active clustering? Check out these tech tips to start: 9.0 Sneak Peek: Active-Active Clustering for ThingWorx 9.0 Sneak Peek: ThingWorx Architecture for Active-Active Clustering 9.0 Sneak Peek: Flexible Deployments of Active-Active Clustering for ThingWorx Click here to listen to how active-active clustering can help you in a variety of scenarios: If you have a request overflow in production and your servers are slowing down, try out active-active clustering! If your IT admin keeps delaying replacing the network card on your HPE rack server and you keep losing connections, check out the power of active-active clustering! If your team is challenged to provision 1000s of additional assets into your system and you’re worried one server can’t handle it, use active-active clustering for horizontal scale! Finally, if you haven’t already, check out Ryan’s LiveWorx session with Senior IoT Product Manager Ayush Tiwari where they break down availability into its core components and explain how you can leverage active-active clustering to achieve key benefits like reduced downtime, increased cost savings, and more.   Enjoy!   Stay connected, Kaya

  Hello, everyone! Discover how we embed security throughout the entire lifecycle of the ThingWorx platform in our latest “ThingWorx on Air” episode!   Hear Walter walk through how the ThingWorx platform is secured from end to end. Walter breaks it down into three simple parts: secure design, secure coding practices and continuous security improvements via our maintenance releases.   Listen to Episode 07 to hear the steps we’re taking in each of these areas and how security is at the forefront of what we do.   Finally, Walter mentions the Secure Deployment Hub, our brand-new set of resources to help you securely deploy your ThingWorx apps. Check out my last tech tip to learn more.   As always, stay connected, Kaya

  Whether you’re new to ThingWorx or you’re a seasoned user, understanding the Thing Model is key to accelerating your IoT development. Today, I’ll dive into what ThingShapes, ThingTemplates and Things are and how to use them to accelerate development.   Before I dive into the definitions of these concepts, let’s first consider the wide array of machines that exist out there in world. The variety is huge—there’s MRI machines, 3D printers, laser cutters, CNC machines, tractors, and so much more.   At their core, all MRI machines share similar properties and capabilities—they have a name, a physical location, a magnetic strength, a radio frequency current, and the ability to visually display what’s going on inside the human body. There are, however, different types of MRI machines, and, while they are fundamentally the same type of machine, there are notable differences as well. When creating our IoT app, it’s important that we have a way to model these differences so that we can cascade changes across entities and reduce development time.   Let’s walk through an example using MRI machines. Consider the various MRI machines that exist today; there’s the traditional closed MRI machine, the open MRI machine and the standing/sitting MRI machine.   To represent the fundamental properties (i.e., characteristics or readings) and services (i.e., functionality) of a generic MRI machine—name, location, magnetic strength, etc.—we’ll create a ThingTemplate. The ThingTemplate is the general definition/representation of the real-world physical thing (i.e. the MRI machine) that is being modeled. You can think of a ThingTemplate as a blueprint of what you’re modeling. A ThingTemplate defines what a Thing is; if you’re familiar with object-oriented programming, a ThingTemplate is similar to the concept of inheritance; it defines a “is a” relationship. Using our ThingTemplate, we’re able to create multiple instances of the template that inherit the properties and services from that template. If you have 100 MRI machines in a particular region, rather than updating each one separately, simply updating the template will allow you to propagate these changes.   Let’s say that, of our 100 MRI machines, 40 are traditional closed machines, 30 are open machines and 30 are standing/sitting machines. The traditional machines have a specific diameter of the opening where the patient goes in to lay down and the sitting/standing machine may have a particular height of the seat where the patient sits. Due to the nature of the machines having unique components/parts, the different types of machines have difference maintenance service.   To model each of these “add-on” properties, we’ll want to create a ThingShape. A ThingShape is a representation of particular properties or services that may optionally come in some versions of the machine but not others. The ThingShape is a single feature or piece of the physical thing that’s being modeled. You can think of a ThingShape as a reusable part, or a set of properties/services that comes with some versions, but not all. A ThingShape defines what a Thing has; if you’re familiar with object-oriented programming, a ThingShape is similar to the concept of composition; it defines a “has a” relationship. So, for our MRI example, we could create one ThingShape for the standing MRI and a second ThingShape for the closed MRI. The StandingMRIThingShape would have a property of “SeatHeight” and a service of “StandingMRIMaintenanceService.” The ClosedMRIThingShape would have a property of “opening diameter” and a service of “ClosedMRIMaintenanceService.” Just like a ThingTemplate, the properties and services that make up a ThingShape are also inherited by the instances that use that ThingShape.   Finally, Things. A Thing is simply an instance of a ThingTemplate with (optionally) ThingShapes added for additional unique properties/services.   Let’s say we want to model a single closed MRI machine. We’ll represent the machine as a Thing that inherits from Templates and Shapes. We’ll start with the MRIMachineThingTemplate so that we can create an MRI Machine Thing (i.e., instance).   Since this is a closed MRI machine and has the additional property of opening diameter, we’ll want to make sure we include that property. To do this, we’ll add the ClosedMRIThingShape.   Viola! We now have a digital twin of our closed MRI machine with all the base properties of an MRI machines from our MRIMachineThingTemplate and all the special add-ons of the closed version with our ClosedMRIMachineThingShape.   Here’s a visual recap of what we just modeled.   If you’re looking for even further guidance on how to model your data with the Thing Model, check out the Data Model Introduction guide on the Developer Portal to get started and the Design Your Data Model guide to learn even more.   Happy data modeling!   Stay connected, Kaya  

 Image Source: https://www.thefire.org/resources/spotlight/     Designed a super cool mashup? Have an innovative IoT app? Are you really proud of how you solved an IoT challenge? Are you using ThingWorx for a unique use case?   If so, we want to hear from you! I’m looking for a few ThingWorx developers that are interested in sharing their work to be showcased on the Ask Kaya blog! (Don’t worry—we can hide your confidential info and only share what you allow us to.) We’d love to highlight what our developers are doing with ThingWorx out in the real world. If you’re interested, comment below or message me directly!   As always, stay connected.  

    We’re back with a ThingWorx 8.5 highlight! Today, we’ll cover brand-new functionality within ThingWorx Flow—the Azure Connector!   Imagine you’re on the regal shores of ThingWorx, trying to reach the plentiful utopia of Azure IoT services and capabilities. How do you get there? Through the new Azure Connector for ThingWorx Flow!   The Azure Connector for ThingWorx Flow is an OOTB connector that enables you to leverage the power and breadth of Azure services directly in ThingWorx applications with ThingWorx Flow. If you have intermittent needs for high-scale processing, for example, the Azure connector can help optimize costs based on when you require a mighty powerful liege and where you only pay for the necessary processing capacity when it is important. Azure Functions are also useful when you want to leverage some special code that was written in a language like Python that you’d like to easily leverage, such as to pre-process information collected from a device.   With the Azure connector, you’re able to: Support execution of logic apps to access a large number of OOTB systems connectors and customer investments in apps. Enable execution of Azure functions wherever elastic scale is needed to cost-effectively support use cases that have intermittent high-scale needs, such as executing an analysis of device sensors leading up to and following a key alert or incident. Enable use of Azure Cognitive Services to easily leverage a rich set of capabilities from simple text to voice or voice to text to computer vision in end-to-end IoT use cases. A few examples include the ability to: Convert the alert text to speech to deliver to an operator to take urgent action. Convert a verbal description of an assembly problem to a textual description in an automatically generated problem report. Use computer vision for a quality check to automatically pass or fail a part based on a visual image and confidence level. Here are a few of the many different services you can leverage with the Azure Connector in ThingWorx Flow: Anomaly Detector Bing Search Computer Vision Custom Vision Execute Function Execute Logic App Face Recognition LUIS Prediction QnA Prediction Speaker Recognition Speech Service Text Analytics Check out this demo video to see an example in action. In the video, you’ll see us: Create an Azure Function app. Create a ThingWorx Flow that triggers from an alert on a ThingWorx thing. Within the flow, you’ll see us consume the alert information and send it to the Azure Function app, and the Azure function app will process and return a response. (view in My Videos)   While simple, this demo shows the ability to connect ThingWorx and Azure together for an incredibly flexible and powerful distributed IoT system.   Finally, if you’re looking for assistance on how to use the new connector, see our Help Center here.   Stay connected and go with the (ThingWorx) Flow! Kaya        

  Hi everyone,   In case you’re looking for more reasons to appreciate the power of Azure, today we’re answering 10 frequently asked questions around how and why to use Azure SQL with ThingWorx.   You likely already know that we support multiple persistence providers, like Azure SQL, InfluxDB, H2, MSSQL and PostgreSQL, for you to store and persist your ThingWorx data. Here’s an up-close-and-personal look into why we recommend Azure SQL.   1. What is Azure SQL?         Azure SQL is a relational database hosted in the Azure cloud and is a fully managed Platform as a Service (PaaS) Database Engine. Azure SQL Database engine is based on the Enterprise Edition of SQL Server. The Azure platform fully manages every Azure SQL Database with a high percentage of data availability and guarantees no data loss. Azure SQL Database comes with built-in high availability, disaster recovery, and upgrade for the database. Refer to Microsoft's Azure SQL Database - Platform as a Service documentation for more information on Azure SQL Database and its features.   2. What are the top 3 reasons to use Azure SQL with ThingWorx?   Ease of Use and Management: Azure SQL greatly reduces the need to manage database resources for ThingWorx. It helps to reduce your total cost of ownership for managing database resources for ThingWorx by managing virtual machines, operating system, database software, upgrades, high availability, and backups for you, so you can focus on building your IoT solution. It provides unmatched scale and high availability for compute and storage without sacrificing performance. With Azure SQL, you can scale your application on demand with up to 99.95% availability.   Hybrid Deployments: ThingWorx supports multiple persistence providers to store IoT data for different use cases. Please refer to the ThingWorx Model and Data Best Practices Guide to learn more. If you’re already using Microsoft SQL Server with ThingWorx on premise, then you can use Azure SQL for your cloud deployments of ThingWorx-based IIoT solutions in hybrid scenarios. This allows you to reduce development time—develop once and deploy anywhere through a common programming surface area across Azure SQL (on cloud) and SQL Server (on premise). You can leverage ThingWorx federation to run ThingWorx in different deployment topologies.   If needed, you can also accelerate your on-premise SQL Server migrations without changing the application code by leveraging Managed Instance. Use the Azure Hybrid Benefit Savings Calculator to calculate your TCO. Enjoy additional deployment flexibility with Single Database for SQL applications created in the cloud or Elastic Pool for multi-tenant applications.   Security and Compliance: Azure SQL Database meets the most stringent compliance standards with built-in auditing and information protection technology. With its availability in different regions, its best suited for Government cloud and sovereign cloud. Please see this link to check for the latest update on Azure product availability by region. You can also get multi-layered security provided by Microsoft across physical datacenters, infrastructure, and operations and will always have the latest SQL Server capabilities in the cloud, with no patching or upgrading. It also offers protection to your databases from malicious acts with fine-grained access controls, Always Encrypted technology, and advanced threat protection capabilities.   3. How do I configure ThingWorx for Azure SQL? From ThingWorx Foundation platform version 8.4 release onwards, ThingWorx provides you an option to choose Azure SQL as a persistence provider to store your value stream, stream, and data table data. This Help Center provides all the details and steps to help you set up Azure SQL with ThingWorx.    You can run ThingWorx with Azure SQL either by downloading the ThingWorx Azure SQL .WAR file or by running it as containerized ThingWorx Docker images by downloading ThingWorx Dockerfiles. For reference, see the below image to help you download ThingWorx 8.4 artifacts.   Here’s a video demonstrating how to install ThingWorx. (view in My Videos)   Here’s a second video that walks you through configuring ThingWorx with Azure SQL. (view in My Videos)   4. Which versions of Azure SQL does ThingWorx support? Consult the latest system requirements guide here to learn which versions of Azure SQL ThingWorx supports.   5. What database deployment options do I have? In Azure, you can have your SQL Server workloads running in a hosted infrastructure (IaaS) or running as a hosted service (PaaS). Within PaaS, you have multiple deployment options and service tiers within each deployment option, such as Single Database, Elastic Pool sets, and managed Instance. ThingWorx supports all the deployment options to setup Azure SQL as a persistence provider. You can refer to this link on Azure SQL Database versus SQL Server to help you choose an option that works best for your business needs.   6. Why would I want to use an PaaS database? Service tools and built-in features enable a more streamlined and automated means of controlling and operating your database. The need for constant manual control and tweaking of information, recovery tools, compliance and updates is now configured and built into Azure SQL for a more hands-off approach to your storage database. Here is a table to inform you on how Azure SQL PaaS helps.   7. Which features are new to Azure SQL 2019? Azure SQL now offers Always Encrypted data transfer through TLS and auto-failover for managed instance deployment to enable transparent and coordinated failover of multiple databases. Azure SQL also offers a data migration assistant, which detects compatibility issues that can impact functionality when upgrading your database. For more information on features and functionality, see Microsoft SQL documentation or Azure SQL’s latest release notes.   8. Is there any guidance available to help me migrate to Azure SQL? Yes! Microsoft’s Database Migration Service enables seamless migration to Managed Instance with downtime measured in minutes. The process is highly automated and risk-free while streamlining the transition of SQL Server and on-Microsoft database systems such as Oracle to Azure SQL Database. You can learn more about upgrading to Azure SQL here.   9. What purchasing models are available to me?   vCore based (recommended) - For customers that prioritize flexibility and control, this model offers scaling of compute, storage, and I/O resources independently to optimize price based on need. The customer chooses the hardware and service tier based on high-availability design, storage type, fault-isolation methods, and I/O ranges.   DTU based - Three distinct available tiers are differentiated based directly upon compute, memory, and I/O resources. This model bundles the measures together for customers who want pre-configured or simplified resource options. You can refer to more pricing and purchase options here.   10. What should I do if I need technical support? If you select Azure SQL as your persistence provider, then all support requests related to configuring Azure SQL can be logged through PTC Technical Support at https://support.ptc.com or by calling 1-800-477-6435.   You may also want to use the PTC Community to learn and collaborate with the growing PTC developer community. For all other requests related to database management, troubleshooting, monitoring, and administration, we encourage you to reach out to Microsoft directly.   Let me know what you think in the comments below.   Stay connected, Kaya

Introduction to the ThingWorx Composer and a demonstration of how you go about building out the design plan.   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.