Litmus and Dell NativeEdge - A Powerful Duo for Improving Industrial IoT Operations
Wed, 08 May 2024 15:18:51 -0000
|Read Time: 0 minutes
Edge AI plays a significant role in the digital transformation of the industrial Internet of things (IIoT). It improves efficiency, productivity, and decision-making processes in the following areas:
- Predictive maintenance—AI algorithms can analyze data from sensors and other connected devices to predict equipment failures before they happen.
- Anomaly detection—AI can identify abnormal patterns or anomalies in data collected from various sensors.
- Operations optimization—AI algorithms can optimize industrial processes by analyzing data and adjusting parameters in real time.
- Supply chain optimization—AI can optimize supply chain processes by analyzing data from inventory levels, demand forecasting, and logistics.
- Quality control—AI-powered vision systems and machine learning algorithms can be implemented in manufacturing quality control. These systems can identify defects or deviations from quality standards, ensuring that only high-quality products reach the market.
- Energy management—AI can analyze energy consumption patterns and optimize energy usage in industrial settings.
- Continuous improvement—AI facilitates continuous improvement by learning from data over time.
Figure 1. Industrial IoT 4.0
This blog demonstrates the benefits of the edge solutions integration on top of NativeEdge with Litmus, one of the integrated solutions.
Industrial IoT Edge AI with NativeEdge and Litmus
Dell NativeEdge serves as a platform for deploying and managing edge devices and applications at the edge. One notable addition to NativeEdge’s latest version is the ability to deliver an end-to-end solution on top of the platform that includes PTC, Litmus, Telit Cinterion, Centerity, and others. This capability allows users to get a consistent and simple management from bare-metal provisioning to a full-blown solution that is fully automated.
Figure 2. Introducing Edge Solutions on top of NativeEdge
Introduction to Litmus
Litmus is an industrial IoT platform that helps businesses collect, analyze, and manage data from IIoT devices. Dell NativeEdge is a cloud-based and on-premise software solution that helps businesses improve their email security and delivery.
Litmus includes two main parts:
- Litmus Edge Manager
- Litmus Edge
Litmus Edge Manager
Litmus Edge Manager serves as a central management console or interface for configuring, monitoring, and managing the Litmus Edge deployments and Litmus Edge.
Figure 3. Litmus Edge Manager
Litmus Edge
Litmus Edge is an industrial edge computing platform designed for edge inferencing locally in real time. It facilitates edge and IoT device management, supports various industrial protocols, enables analytics and machine learning at the edge, and emphasizes security measures.
Figure 4. Litmus Edge platform
Litmus Edge provides a flexible solution for organizations to optimize data processing, enhance device connectivity, and derive insights directly at the edge of their industrial IoT deployments through a simple no-code user experience.
Figure 5. No-Code Editor for Edge Inferencing
Deploying the Litmus Solution on NativeEdge
First, deploy the Litmus Edge. Multiple Litmus Edge instances can be deployed on multiple NativeEdge Endpoints. Each Litmus Edge is connected to sensors like robotic arms and CNCs. The following image shows the blueprint that provisions the Litmus Edge VM from a Litmus Edge image.
The following figure shows the Litmus Edge topology on NativeEdge. We can see the NativeEdge Litmus VM provisioned as well as the binary Litmus image and their dependencies.
We can also see that there is an SDP node, where data is streamed to and persisted.
Figure 6. Litmus Edge blueprint topology
The second blueprint provisions the Litmus Edge Manager VM that can connect to multiple Litmus Edges on multiple NativeEdge Endpoints.
The following figure shows the Litmus Edge Manager topology on NativeEdge. The Litmus Edge Manager can also be provisioned on vSphere. We can see the NativeEdge Litmus Manager VM provisioned as well as the binary Litmus manager image and their dependencies.
Figure 7. Litmus Edge Manager blueprint topology
Let us look at how a NativeEdge user interacts with Litmus Edge. From the NativeEdge App Catalog, choose the deploy Litmus Edge Manager or Litmus Edge (or both) and go to the deployment inputs customization.
Figure 8. NativeEdge App Catalog
On the deployment inputs, you can customize the IP address and hostname to access the Litmus Edge Manager. This includes the number of vCPUs to allocate for the Litmus Manager VM.
Figure 9. Litmus Edge deployment inputs
After deployment execution, we can see in the following figure that we provisioned multiple Litmus Edges. We can provision a fleet of Litmus Edges that are connected and managed by one Litmus Edge Manager.
Figure 10. Litmus Edge deployment
Conclusion
Dell NativeEdge provides fully automated, secure device onboarding from bare metal to cloud. As a DevEdgeOps platform, NativeEdge also gives the ability to validate and continuously manage the provisioning and configuration of those device endpoints in a secured manner. This reduces the risk of failure or security breaches due to misconfiguration or human error by detecting those potential vulnerabilities earlier in the pre-deployment development process.
The introduction of NativeEdge Orchestrator enables customers to have consistent and simple management of integrated solutions across their entire fleet of new and existing devices, supporting external services, VxRail, and soon other cloud infrastructures. The separation between the device management and solution is the key to enabling consistent operational management between different solution vendors and cloud infrastructures.
The specific integration between NativeEdge and Litmus provides a full-blown IIoT management platform from bare metal to cloud. It also simplifies the ability to process data at the edge by introducing edge AI inferencing through a simple no-code interface.
The solution framework allows vendors to use Dell NativeEdge as a generic edge infrastructure framework, addressing fundamental aspects of device fleet management. Vendors can then focus on delivering the unique value of their solution, be it predictive maintenance or real-time monitoring, as demonstrated by the Litmus use case.
References
- Litmus Edge | Dell Technologies Validated Design for Manufacturing Edge with Litmus - TechBook | Dell Technologies Info Hub
- Litmus Live Demo
- DevEdgeOps Defined | Dell Technologies Info Hub
- Simplify Edge Operations - Flipbook | Multimedia for the NativeEdge Platform | Dell Technologies Info Hub