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.
Call the ThingWorx exposed REST Web API from Python/Matlab/R/Java/Javascript. Every service from ThingWorx can be called that way, and the API can also be used to push analyses results into ThingWorx for further consumption, perhaps together with other sources of data such as sensor readings, in the smart applications built there. The documentation for the ThingWorx REST API can be found here.
Expose the existing Analytics via using a thin layer of REST Web Services. For example, in Python, this can be done using Flask, with few lines of code. Then, the orchestration can happen from ThingWorx by calling the exposed Web Service and weaving the results back into smart applications.
Often our customers' current architecture involves a relational database (e.g. SQL Server, Oracle, etc) that is powering the existing Analytics, and stores the end results (predictions, correlations, etc). In this scenario, we can connect ThingWorx directly to that database to read these results.
Finally, in the case of complex Analytics, where a tighter integration with ThingWorx is desired, existing Analytics / algorithms can be wrapped into a ThingWorx Extension or an Analytics Provider using the corresponding PTC SDKs.
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.
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