Category: Company News

AggreGate technical training for Sputnik-Integration LLC

Tibbo office was recently visited by our new partner, Sputnik-Integration LLC. The visit aimed a week-long AggreGate technical training tailored to industrial automation projects such as oil derrick and oil terminal automation. Sputnik engineers were impressed by AggreGate SCADA's capabilities and very satisfied of the learning process.

Citing Mikael Puchnin, Head of Development Department: "AggreGate Platform is a non-typical system with rich functionality. Thus we've decided to study the product deeply and thoroughly. The system's completely met our expectations! It's a very flexible tool understanding various hardware pieces and software datasources. It allows to create scalable applications. We were really impressed by AggreGate solutions and will use the system for our projects."

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Designing AggreGate-based Products

As you probably know, AggreGate is typically used by VARs, SIs and OEMs for building reference solutions or even full-fledged derived products. Technically, each derived OEM solution is a set of plugins for:

  • Acquiring data from devices and data sources
  • Storing data on the server
  • Processing data in headless mode
  • Visualizing data via custom AggreGate-based operator UIs
  • Exposing data to third-party applications.

Many simple solutions only include server-side processing templates and parts of operator UI, such as widgets, maps, reports and dashboards. Such solutions acquire data via standard protocols and keep it in default storages, such as relational, NoSQL and RRDB databases.

We've recently posted a short article that describes how to package your custom processing and visualization tools into an AggreGate plugin. The article requires basic understanding of AggreGate Plugin SDK. Please check it here.

An out-of-the-box PDU monitoring is available in AggreGate

Now a PDU monitoring is available in AggreGate out-of-the-box right after the server installation. AggreGate collects common PDU information, like model, firmware version, series number, etc. Besides, the system is able to monitor more important PDU parameters, such as current force, voltage, active and total power.

PDU monitoring

Try out all AggreGate features by downloading our free trial version here.

OPC manual tags support

We've added manual tags support to our OPC device driver. This feature is a rescue in case of legacy OPC servers that do not support items browsing. Simply add desired item IDs to the 'Manual Items' device property and these items will be directly requested from the device upon each synchronization. Manual tags will be available at the device configuration, next to auto-discovered tags if any.

The full list of available device drivers is available in Protocols/Drivers section on our website.

Meet AggreGate 5.2 with Unified Search and Big Data Storage

AggreGate 5.2Tibbo has released a new 5.2 version of AggreGate IoT Integration Platform.

Being the first major release in 2015, AggreGate 5.2 delivers Big Data support, unified search capabilities, Business Intelligence (BI) engine, C/C++ Agent SDK and other valuable core features, as well as improvements of all vertical market extension packs including Network Manager and SCADA/HMI.

New AggreGate got a unified search window that digs data across the whole system and instantly provides results based on a pre-indexed database. Besides that version 5.2 brings a whole new level of intelligence to the Platform by introducing two new core modules: Mass object management and Object dashboards. AggreGate platform keeps up with the mainstream and now allows NoSQL databases to be used as configuration and event storage. Apache Cassandra and BerkleyDB Java Edition being used together ensure extremely fast persistent configuration updates and very high history/event storage rates.

Among other major improvements are: steady state mode suitable for kiosks and dedicated operator PCs, new video streaming protocols, network topology map layout persistence, new device drivers (Local Agent, Local System and Omron FINS), improved topology discovery via CDP/LLDP and more.

Detailed information on the new release is available at https://aggregate.digital/news/release_52.html. Please also download version 5.2 here and let us know how it works for you.

Born for AggreGate

Do you know that some devices are designed specially for AggreGate? One of them is a simple and easy-to-use TR610 Tibbo Time Recorder. It utilizes RFID technology to allow quick employee registration on entrance/exit gates.

The TR610 was developed to dovetail with AggreGate Time and Attendance for providing optimal administration and reporting facilities.

AggreGate Time and Attendance for TR610

The TR610 can enroll itself automatically with AggreGate Server and begin streaming attendance data in near-real-time over the network. While the terminal can be configured via AggreGate, its web connectivity and on-screen menu work even when it’s enrolled with AggreGate.

Combination of time recorders with open-source firmware and attendance control software based on an enterprise device management platform provided a lot of benefits. What are they? Read more about it on http://programmableterminal.com/

Graph Layout Saving

Many partners and customer will appreciate the long-awaited transparent graph layout saving feature.

A Graph UI component is enhanced to automatically save its current visual layout. A user can manually edit node positions by drag-and-drop and layout info will get persistently stored on the server. When a widget with a graph component is opened next time, graph layout is restored to the last saved state. You're welcome to create your own customized network topology maps!

Network Topology Discovery

You can get more information about AggreGate Network Manager capabilities here.

Centralized incident monitoring and management in a multi-service SDH/PDH data transmission network

Tibbo team has successfully designed and deployed the system for a multi-service SDH/PDH network monitoring for United Energy Company. Being one of the largest electric grid companies in Moscow, UEC JSC provides electricity transmission and distribution, technological connection and new networks building.

United Energy Company Management chose Tibbo AggreGate Platform for building reliable communication channel supervision system. Once the project was finished, United Energy Company has got a unique SDH/PDH networks monitoring tool that improved quality and stability of network services. Communication channels and equipment troubleshooting time has been dramatically reduced. Timely information sharing on hardware status, power supply specifications, cooling system state has cut down incident count. The system has been justly appreciated and accepted into service.

For details on the project implementation, as well as on deployed hardware and software view the Case Study.

Visualizing Device Groups on Network Maps

We’ve recently added support for displaying device groups on geographical and topological maps. Devices can be combined into groups and each group is associated with specific geographic coordinates and links to other groups or individual devices.

This new feature allows to design multi-level maps with drill-down capabilities. Imagine a company that provides technical services for Base Telecom Stations in a certain geographical region. Each BTS is a group of devices that includes power management units, security devices, telecom equipment, environment sensors and controllers, etc. Base stations are connected to each other by communication channels, and station-to-station links can be configured through a Topology section of a device group matching each BTS.

Visualizing Device Groups on Network Maps

Operators get a map that displays stations and their communication channels, as well as overall status of all equipment in each BTS. They can navigate from the map to BTS overview screens and then down to individual device dashboards.

You can get more information about AggreGate Network Manager capabilities here.