InfoStreet In the News

App Access for Machine Operator Interface is Sexier Marketing, but Nowhere Near the Same Capability as Browser-Based Access

Some automation vendors offer direct access to machine HMIs and OITs with iPhone apps. Apps are useful for personal purposes, particularly for quick access to online info. We're wondering if app access for machine operator interface is better than browser-based access through a smartphone, or just a sexier marketing of the same capability.

—From March '12 Control Design

Answers

Apps Faster, With More Features
When deciding whether an app is better than browser-based access via a smartphone, the inevitable question is: "Why would I want to pay for an app when I can get browser-based access for free?" One significant reason is that browser-based access usually provides only read-only information, whereas an app generally provides two-way access that can allow a user to control a machine via a smartphone.

An app also provides information much faster, unlike browser-based access, which requires the entire page, including graphics and headers, to be downloaded before the information can be accessed. This enables users to access the information and respond faster, making real-time monitoring and control feasible.

One of our customers, Joel Froese, owner/operator of the Red Bank Hydro Plant in Columbia, S.C., prefers an app for the control of the machinery at his hydroelectric plant from his iPhone via the onscreen buttons. As he notes in the recent Control Design article "Remote Access Makes New Connections (external link)," he can now start up and shut down the system just as if he were standing in front of the HMI. "And built-in safety features ensure that I don't accidentally push the wrong button."

Another customer is Mark Gentry, an engineer with Samuel Jackson (external link), an OEM that builds moisture control products for drying and moisture restoration systems. He was also quoted as saying that he prefers an app to a web browser in the Control Design article "Remote Access Down on the Farm (external link)."He explains that using a browser on a mobile device means waiting for a page to load, including all the headers, graphics and other overhead that entails. "With an app, the only thing you need to pull is the data itself, which, in most cases, doesn't amount to very many bytes."

Furthermore, some apps are actually very inexpensive, making the decision to choose app over web browser that much more straightforward.

Greg Philbrook,
product manager HMI/communications,
AutomationDirect, www.automationdirect.com (external link)

Features, Features, Features
There is no denying the smartphone and tablet market proliferation. iPhones, iPads and Android devices are sexy. Why not just use the built-in web browser for everything?!? Simply put: Features.

Natively developed apps can be tailored specifically to the device and offer access to features that a web page just can't duplicate. For example, a natively built iOS app can run in the background waiting for data to be pushed or pulled from a cloud-based web service. While accessing the data for an automation application, the app could keep a local database of trends and information without needing to be online at all times.

A native app also can provide a much more familiar look and feel with gestures and other input options not available in a traditional web-page model. The multimedia experience can enhance the HMI framework to be much more than the simple toggle switches and gauges of today.

Imagine a situation where you have a machine HMI without Internet access available. An app-based HMI could communicate with the automation controller, offer control functions, and gather logs and other useful statistical information. The next time that the user's mobile device is online, it could "phone home" and provide tracking and statistical information to a server running in the cloud.

Sexier marketing? Absolutely—but nowhere near the same capability. Native features make all the difference.

Keith Willis,
president,
ECXSystems, www.ecxsystems.com (external link)

Appvantages
An app indeed has some advantages over browser-based access. Let's start with the available functionality. Using a browser for remote access, the user needs to enter the HMI's IP address or name in the browser. An app can have additional functionality embedded that allows snooping for available HMIs on the network, creating a list and allowing the user to simply select an HMI from the list for remote access. A single webpage in a browser would not be able to do that.

Security is another advantage of an app. Since it can use additional communication methods beyond standard http, an app offers added security measures beyond user name and password that are entered in a web browser.

An app also is more convenient to launch on a smartphone because it has its dedicated place on the phone's desktop vs. the generic browser app, where the HMI to be accessed can be bookmarked, at best.

The disadvantage of an app could be that it's vendor-specific, so you need multiple apps if you have HMIs from different vendors on your production floor. Vendors also need to create apps for the different smartphone platforms, and users need to download multiple versions if they use different smartphone or tablet platforms in operations.

The value add of an app should easily justify any cost associated with an app because it is easier and more secure to handle than simple browser-based access.

Robert Muehlfellner,
director of automation,
B&R Industrial Automation, www.br-automation.com (external link)

Smaller Not Always Better
Smartphones have added an entirely new dimension to human-machine interaction. They're extremely portable and remarkably powerful, and they do a good job of providing access to web-based tools of all kinds. The flexibility they provide can be a nice advantage because you also don't have to drag cables around with you.

It's important to note, however, that websites and many web-based tools are designed to be used from a computer with a keyboard and mouse. Interacting with some of these tools via finger taps isn't always ideal. It might be hard to touch the right button or type in commands because the program wasn't designed for a smartphone, and everyone's fingers are a different size. A tablet can sometimes solve this problem, especially if the app has been designed with the tablet's size and capabilities in mind.

Bosch Rexroth offers web-based HMI that can be used as a command and status interface. We recommend using the command interface while being around the machine for safety concerns and because of the remaining concerns of wireless devices in general. Some of the concerns are software incompatibility, network dropouts, and the danger of remotely starting or stopping a machine without knowing if it was safe to do so. Also, because of the range of app platforms—Android, iOS, HTML5—the app might not stay as up to date as it should.

Abdulilah Alzayyat,
product manager,
Bosch Rexroth, www.boschrexroth-us.com (external link)

There's an App for That
"Yes, we have an app for that." That is what most iPhone users want to hear. It's one of the main features that sets the iPhone apart from other mobile devices. But are native apps any better than web apps?

A few years ago, the answer would have been a resounding, "Yes." Apps changed the way people interact with mobile devices. Web apps were generally targeted at desktop users with high-resolution screens, and generally offered mostly static content. Trying to access these web apps on a mobile device was frustrating and often futile. Native apps provided new, dynamic interfaces and leveraged the specific size and features of mobile devices like touchscreens and redefined usability.

For HMI vendors, however, supporting iPhone apps was costly. Native iPhone apps created additional development and support costs, not to mention dependence on the App Store as the sole distribution channel. If you add in other smartphone competitors such as Android, RIM and Microsoft, then those costs multiply because each requires different development tools and distribution channels.

Fortunately, this is beginning to change. New standards such as HTML5 are emerging that allow HMI vendors to develop interfaces that can be packaged as native apps or web apps running in mobile web browsers. This enables HMI vendors to leverage the mobile-cloud connection to move seamlessly between the application, desktop and mobile devices.

Larry Combs
vice president of customer support,
InduSoft, www.indusoft.com (external link)

Six of One…
People from all walks of life carry smartphones, and these smartphones are the users' preferred secondary screen, primary or secondary camera, and preferred chat device. In fact, it is estimated that more than 90 million phones in the U.S. are smartphones. That's a cool one-third of all phones in the U.S.

Ubiquity has a definite value. Talk to industrial engineers and they will tell you that in the past their dream was to have many screens on the manufacturing floor for monitoring, reporting and moving the process forward; but cost, safety and device connectivity made this an impossible feat. Today, every person has a moving secondary screen on them: their smartphone.

For heavy applications, number-crunching and database lookups will be done at the server level, with the smartphone mostly acting as an interactive display. For lighter applications, the smartphone can be used for what it is: a mini computer.

Question: Do we just point the phone's browser to our system, or is it better to develop a local app on the phone? Answer: Yes. It just depends on your application, resources and needs.

If your application is light and does not require server connectivity, or if your manufacturing floor does not support good connectivity, then the decision is simple: local app it is. However, for the majority of cases, since the local phone app just displays the data from your system in the cloud, the decision isn't whether or not a cloud-based solution should be developed; it's whether or not to develop a local app in addition to your browser-based solution in order to access the data from the cloud.

From the perspective of the application developer, of course maintaining one system is easier. However, since many phone browsers are still in a rather primitive state, they might limit what can be done in the browser. Having a smartphone app will give you flexibility, but at the cost of maintaining two (or more) development trees. That spells longer release times and heavier QA costs.

From the user's perspective, the main value is readily accessible data. If the user has to download an app, it might present itself as a barrier—albeit a small one.

In addition, the smartphone email programs don'ft differentiate between links. In other words, if a link is emailed to the user, clicking on it will automatically open the browser and not the local app. This can cause confusion for many users and indirectly cause them to become used to the browser as opposed to the local app. Apps that are not used are useless.

If a developer wants a sexier approach, a boast of technical prowess, a sign of keeping up with the times, and has the resources to maintain it, a local app connecting to the server is the way to go.

If sexy matters less—for instance, when it is for internal manufacturing and not for customer eyes—then a developer might choose the easier and faster path of presenting the data through the browser.

Siamak Farah,
founder and CEO,
InfoStreet, www.infostreet.com (external link)

By: Dan Hebert (external link)

Let Somebody Else Handle the Data Flow? It's Tempting, but Are the Controls and Safeguards Convincing Enough to Tie the Plant to Cloud-Based Services?

The cloud has arrived for commercial and personal applications, and the benefits in those business spaces are real. Cloud use is already widespread in many corporate functional areas and is becoming ever more present. A recent report from the Economist Intelligence Unit and IBM indicates that 90% of corporate America expects to adopt the cloud in its organizations during the next three years. The uses include data storage, transfer of large data files like software downloads to customers, and web mail services such as Gmail.

Taking cloud use to another level, many companies outsourced entire functions such as customer relationship management, letting others provide this type of software as a service, typically accessed through a web browser.

Employees at industrial firms certainly are becoming familiar with the cloud through personal use. Companies involved in commercial enterprise, particularly those selling business-to-consumer, are using the cloud, and we'll see that there are good reasons why.

Though the cloud is doing well in commercial and personal applications, industrial manufacturing users are few and far between. The challenges are significant for real-time, critical operations such as manufacturing.

In Cloud We Don't Yet Trust

Popular uses for the most part are not directly related to manufacturing. Leave it to an end user to get right to the heart of the matter: concerns about how cloud reliability and security could threaten manufacturing stability.

"Although cloud-based data storage might be beneficial for process automation systems, no one in a petroleum processing plant trusts its integrity due to its immaturity," says Rick Hakimioun, senior instrument/electrical and control systems engineer at Paramount Petroleum (external link). "It took a while for us to trust the integrity of data from fieldbus instrumentation, and it will take a while for the cloud to catch on. I'm not against taking advantage of cloud-based data sharing for monitoring process control systems. But due to lack of a published standard practice developed by engineering society experts, I'm not sure about its utilization at this time. I say, in cloud we don't trust, at least for now."

Richard McCormick, automation engineer with system integrator Mick Automation in Levis, Quebec, has similar concerns. "My main concern would of course be linked to the security aspect of using the cloud," he says. "There is absolutely no Internet connection allowed from the process control network DMZ at all of the places we work, so the standard cloud couldn't be used."

More Than Hype

As with many new software and information system technologies, the hype surrounding the cloud is omnipresent and often overwhelming. But benefits are real. Virtually any service provided by the cloud also can be provided by in-house IT, so benefits of the cloud generally must be expressed by comparing them to the in-house IT alternative.

For example, data storage and backup often are provided in-house, but cloud providers often can do it cheaper and more reliably. Economies of scale let cloud providers store data for extremely low prices, most of these providers have elaborate data backup plans in place, and support is 24/7.

For many firms, the costs to buy software and pay renewal fees to maintain it are a significant expense. Paying a cloud provider for software-as-a-service (SaaS) is much cheaper, particularly when the full costs of IT personnel and infrastructure are factored in.

Deployment can also be quicker. SaaS applications can be put into use within hours, as opposed to weeks or even months for an in-house product that performs a similar function.

For remote data access, the cloud can provide many more paths than an in-house solution. If a plant stores its data in an on-premises server, all users must connect to this server for data access. If the data can be moved onto the cloud, multiple access paths are enabled, increasing reliability and access speed as remote user connections now can become local.

For vendors with a worldwide presence, the cloud can be the best way to distribute software. "Our company uses cloud-based products internally to provide services to our customers, such as downloads of our software products," says Marcia Gadbois, president of InduSoft (external link), a company that provides SCADA and HMI software to industrial firms. "Using a cloud provider allows our users to download from local servers wherever they are in the world, increasing download speeds through a reliable high-speed data connection. We use Amazon (external link) and Rackspace (external link) to provide this service, and we've found both providers to be very reliable, providing the performance and uptime our customers need at very low cost to us."

Can Manufacturing Benefit?

In terms of applications, it's hard to envision any tasks directly associated with real-time control of manufacturing moving to the cloud. That won't do a thing to lessen the concerns of the Hakimiouns and McCormicks out there. Instead, the cloud will perform tasks that support manufacturing, particularly data storage and remote access.

Manufacturing-related tasks will be performed in one of two methods. With one method, the cloud will be used to host a service provided to the manufacturer by a system integrator or an automation vendor. This service then will be sold to the manufacturer, typically on a monthly subscription basis. In the second method, manufacturers will run their own applications in the cloud, using hardware and other associated infrastructure provided by others.

For now, most applications are of the first variety, with end users purchasing remote access and other services from others for a monthly fee. For example, system integrator Vipond Controls (external link) in Calgary, Alberta, has developed a cloud-based SCADA.

"Critically for our customers, our solution eliminates the expense, time and manpower required to purchase, install and maintain local SCADA hardware and software at each site," says Darryl Vipond, president. For more detail on this application, see "HMI in the Sky (external link)."

ECXSystems (external link) in Tyler, Texas, is another system integrator and services firm providing cloud-based remote access, in this case via its own cloud-based data center that ECXSystems manages for its customers.

In a recently deployed application, its data center pulls information from SoftPLC (external link) controllers, and makes this data available to remote users for a periodic fee. For more information, see "Data for All (external link)."

Most cloud-based industrial applications, including the two described above, don't provide access to the controller, but this functionality will come soon. "We're working with an OEM to design a cloud-based access and control system with automated two-way communications so in the event of an alarm, they could instruct the SoftPLC to correct the problem, if possible," says Cindy Hollenbeck, vice president of SoftPLC.

This two-way access via the cloud will be significant, says Erik Goode, technology leader for strategic manufacturing solutions at system integrator Maverick Technologies (external link) in Columbia, Ill. "In some situations, the cloud will become part of the critical path between the end user making a decision and the control system receiving it," he argues. "This controversial milestone will be as significant as when control systems first moved to non-proprietary networks."

Where's My Data?

For many industrial companies, their data is precious—it could contain intellectual property that puts them ahead of their competitors. Using the cloud to store and distribute this data could make these companies nervous for a number of reasons.

For others, using the cloud in their production and manufacturing processes seems to add a layer of dependence on Internet connectivity and outside service suppliers that didn't exist before, raising legitimate concerns about reliability.

In terms of data security, using a cloud provider is a double-edged sword. On one hand, the cloud provider likely has much stronger security and encryption in place than a typical in-house IT department, with 24/7 support to foil any intruders.

On the other hand, there are many more hackers looking to earn street creds by breaking into the Amazon cloud vault as opposed to a typical industrial company. And the collective data in the Amazon cloud is worth much more than the data in a single industrial company, further increasing temptation.

Another major concern for many is near total dependency on the selected cloud provider, with this dependency increasing with the length of time the provider is used. For example, a company could rely on a cloud provider to store all of its key manufacturing data. Initial costs would be very low, but the selected provider would control the data and be free to raise prices at any time.

Switching to another provider would require cooperation from the cloud provider to transfer the data, and it's questionable how forthcoming this cooperation would be, especially if asked to transfer data to a competitor. In the financial services and telecommunications industry, regulations exist in the U.S. and other countries that require transfer of money and/or data from one provider to another. But no such regulations exist in the cloud yet, increasing dependence on the vendor, and with it the risk to the cloud user.

There are ways to mitigate these risks, albeit with some cost and inconvenience to the user. "Many cloud firms will provide backups to ensure user data is redundantly secure, and it's industry protocol for cloud providers to contractually ensure user data is always available, regardless of what happens to the provider," notes Siamak Farah, CEO of InfoStreet (external link), a cloud software provider

Finally, many industrial users are concerned with replacing dependency on an in-house corporate network with dependency on an Internet connection. For example, a company could use the cloud to store and provide access to data, both to in-plant and remote personnel. If the connection from the plant to the cloud were to be lost, then so would the access.

Alternate access paths can be provided from the plant to the cloud, and from the cloud to each user, but at least one of the paths from the plant to the cloud would have to be up and running. For many, an in-plant communications network is perceived as more reliable than any practical number of cloud connections.

Back on the Plant Floor…

The only way McCormick can envision something similar for automation would be through a dedicated and very secure link to a vendor-specific site for remote vendor applications. "But again, it would be very hard to guarantee 100% security at all times, and that means the plant system not being affected by anything bad happening at the vendor site," he cautions. "And imagine using many links like this for different vendors, which would be a nightmare to maintain security in all cases."

An end user at a water utility says he would consider using the cloud for data storage, but voices his concerns when it comes to other areas. "Hosting actual applications remotely vs. just storing data is a concern for automation/real-time control where applications need to be running as part of a plant or treatment facility," explains Dave Mazzarella, PE, senior electrical engineer at Irvine Ranch Water District (external link) in California. "The link to remote servers could be lost, but the plant still needs to operate. The cloud adds a failure mode that doesn't exist in our current systems."

The Killer

Remote access appears to be at least one of the killer apps for the cloud in terms of functionality. But what will convince end users like Hakimioun, McCormick and Mazzarella to use and trust the cloud for this and other applications?

"If one of our DCS vendors—Emerson or Honeywell—offered cloud-based data storage and access, we would consider it," Hakimioun says. "These vendors perform lots of testing to ensure the integrity of their systems meets our requirements."

The Talk2M service from eWon (external link) uses virtual private networks (VPNs) and tunneling to provide remote access, notes Francis Vanderghinst, sales manager. "Talk2M accepts connections from users as well as their machines, so both parties can exchange data using this technology," he says. "The end connection to the machine is in reality made through an eWon industrial router that connects to the heart of this machine, the controller. The only requirement is that the eWon router should be connected to the customer LAN, and it should be possible to browse on the web from this LAN."

Asset management could be another killer app, and it appears to be particularly well-suited to the cloud. A manufacturer would only have to provide a high-speed, two-way data connection to the control and information system, and the vendor could immediately begin to collect and analyze data. Once this data was analyzed, the vendor could provide specific recommendations for improving asset utilization. This service could be provided for a monthly fee on a relatively short-term basis, reducing risk and encouraging use.

All manufacturers want to improve asset utilization, and vendors promise this and other benefits to those who buy and install their asset management software. But with in-house deployment, the manufacturer must first invest large sums in software, servers, networks, and IT and asset management experts.

Buying asset management through SaaS models could allow virtually instant deployment with very low upfront costs, allowing manufacturers to try the service and assess benefits with very low risk.

By George Jackson

Amazon posted first-quarter profits that blew by analysts' estimates. That gave the company's stock a big boost in extended trading. It's Kindle Fire sold like hotcakes and helped the company lift revenue from digital movies and books. Meanwhile, Amazon is locked in a battle with Microsoft over Cloud technology. InfoStreet CEO Siamak Farah offered analysis on Capital Insider (external link).

By David Rubinstein (external link)

Among the messages from purveyors of cloud solutions is the notion that hosted software on rented hardware can save organizations money in terms of utility costs, rack servers, and IT staff. They point to large organizations with multiple massive server rooms and say the savings will be in the millions.

But what if you’re a small or mid-sized business? The savings from your own small server room to a hosted solution is not all that much in terms of what the larger companies can save. So what’s the value for a smaller business?

It’s simply this: The cloud gives small companies access to resources it otherwise would not be able to afford at all. And that’s where real value comes in.

I was having this discussion with Siamak Farah, founder and CEO of InfoStreet, a Tarzana, Calif.-based company that makes cloud application management software, and he explained that he is aiming his company squarely at smaller businesses.

“It is my belief that small businesses actually need cloud substantially more than large businesses,” he said. “The reason for that is, if large businesses make a mistake, they have several resources to overcome it, where a small business...any mistake could be potentially fatal to them or very crippling and actually keep them quite a bit behind.

“Secondly,” he continued, “access to resources isn’t as available for small businesses, meaning that if you have a team of star IT people, that’s easy to attract for a larger corporation, especially if you’re in one of the major metropolitan centers. But if you’re a small business in Cheyenne, Wyo. or whatnot, you’re not going to have access to a slew of people, and if you do, you may not be able to afford them. So the cloud provides not only software for them, but also built-in IT services for them, things that they couldn’t afford otherwise, and in a major way levels the playing field for them.”

To put it another way, Farah said, “If you can’t afford a Rolls-Royce, the next bet instead of owning one is to be able to pay a certain amount a month and be driven in it, so that’s just as good as an experience.”

InfoStreet is soft-launching SkyDesktop and SkyAppMarket. He sees this, as others have, as the beginning of the end of the operating system as we know it. But he has a long view of the subject.

“Back in 1994, when the Web was in its infancy and there was no JavaScript and there weren’t any ways of doing applications for the Web, I set out to build a company to provide cloud solution Software-as-a-Service before any of those were coined to the masses. And the criteria would be that all you need is a browser, whether it’s your laptop or iPad or desktop, it doesn’t matter. You’re always using the same services.”

SkyDesktop, he explained, is a single point of entry to your applications in the cloud. “Nowadays, people go to the cloud, but they go to one site to access their CRM, another site to do their online accounting, another site to do their e-mail and whatnot. And it’s becoming somewhat of a learning curve for new employees because when you hire somebody new you have to say, ‘Hey, for e-mail, go to www xyz.com, for CRM go to www abc.com...’ and you go to all these different sites, and they have to take notes, they have to remember, and it’s difficult. So what we have done is we’ve created SkyDesktop, which is a desktop that is for all the cloud applications, meaning that all the cloud apps that you either buy from us or have bought already, and you can create shortcuts on this desktop, and it resembles a Mac desktop or a Windows desktop.

“This is really going full circle to coming up with an operating system in the sky that people can go ahead and just use it,” he said. “So they log in, they see their icons, they click on it. Anything they bought from us has single sign-on, some other ones through OpenID or SAML have single sign-ons through them, so they come in and it’s just like using a local desktop.

“The difference is it’s in the cloud. You don’t get viruses, you can use it from anywhere, and most importantly for small businesses—and this is something that is lost upon a lot of people—is that nowadays with the way technology works, everybody has to replenish their hardware every about two to three years, because they just become slow or virus-prone or whatnot. But when you are using cloud-based solutions, any old hardware will do because all you’re doing is using a browser to display it, and the computing is happening at the data center.

“So people could have 4-year-old technology to just watch and interact with the software, and if that machine dies or gets viruses—(though) chances are much lower because they’re using cloud software—they just leave it alone and go sit at the next computer, and two minutes later they’re back working as opposed to trying to restore a machine and having a day or two lost. That productivity loss is very, very big for small business, and small businesses are most vulnerable to productivity loss because they have no cushion.”

David Rubinstein is editor-in-chief of SD Times.

Siamak talks about Cloud technology and how it can benefit a small business.

As reported on Firstpost.com (external link)

SBA Radio is a weekly program designed to assist and inform small businesses with the latest information from the Small Business Administration.

PUBLICATION/PROGRAMMING INFORMATION

The show airs Thursdays at 11 a.m.