make the iiot vision - intel · pdf filethe industrial internet of things (iiot) is...

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The Industrial Internet of Things (IIoT) is here—and you can harness its power with the GE Predix* platform. Built on the same technology that GE and Intel use to optimize their own operations, Predix makes it easy to connect your assets and identify inefficiencies. By combining GE’s expertise in industrial pro- cesses with Intel’s cutting-edge computing and security technologies, these two industry leaders have created an end-to-end solution that includes gateways, communications services, and a cloud platform. Whether you want to prevent equipment failures, optimize your processes, or reduce energy costs, Predix can help. It can be applied to essentially any kind of asset—whether those assets are machines in a factory, a car, an airplane, a building, or a train. The Industrial IIoT goes from dream to reality The vision of the Industrial Internet of Things (IIoT) is compelling. Imagine the efficiencies you could gain if all your assets connected to the cloud, where powerful yet user-friendly analytics help your teams and equipment perform optimally. Sounds great, but for many manufacturers, the IIoT has seemed too impractical to be anything more than a vison. MAKE THE IIoT VISION A REALITY WITH PREDIX The truth is that the IIoT is already a practical re- ality, and companies like GE and Intel are proving its benefits. For example, GE and Intel partnered on an IIoT deployment that achieved a 24.1% reduction in energy use within GE’s manufactur- ing facilities. Working with Intel, the GE team was able to ho- listically attack the problems at hand, gaining a clear understanding of what data was and was not relevant before sending up to the cloud. More analysis and computation was done closer to the device by leveraging the power of Intel ® proces- sors, resulting in broad savings both in energy use and associated costs. Now the same technology that GE and Intel use internally is available to you. By combining GE’s expertise in industrial processes with Intel’s cutting-edge computing and security technolo- gies, these two industry leaders have created GE Predix, an end-to-end solution that enables you to connect your assets and boost efficiency. ABSTRACT Figure 1. Predix* from GE lets you connect all your assets. * Predix is a trademark of General Electric Company.

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Page 1: MAKE THE IIoT VISION - Intel · PDF fileThe Industrial Internet of Things (IIoT) is here—and you can harness its power with the GE Predix* platform. Built on the same technology

The Industrial Internet of Things (IIoT) is here—and you can harness its power with the GE Predix* platform. Built on the same technology that GE and Intel use to optimize their own operations, Predix makes it easy to connect your assets and identify inefficiencies.

By combining GE’s expertise in industrial pro-cesses with Intel’s cutting-edge computing and security technologies, these two industry leaders have created an end-to-end solution that includes gateways, communications services, and a cloud platform.

Whether you want to prevent equipment failures, optimize your processes, or reduce energy costs, Predix can help. It can be applied to essentially any kind of asset—whether those assets are machines in a factory, a car, an airplane, a building, or a train.

The Industrial IIoT goes from dream to reality

The vision of the Industrial Internet of Things (IIoT) is compelling. Imagine the efficiencies you could gain if all your assets connected to the cloud, where powerful yet user-friendly analytics help your teams and equipment perform optimally. Sounds great, but for many manufacturers, the IIoT has seemed too impractical to be anything more than a vison.

MAKE THE IIoT VISION A REALITY WITH PREDIX

The truth is that the IIoT is already a practical re-ality, and companies like GE and Intel are proving its benefits. For example, GE and Intel partnered on an IIoT deployment that achieved a 24.1% reduction in energy use within GE’s manufactur-ing facilities.

Working with Intel, the GE team was able to ho-listically attack the problems at hand, gaining a clear understanding of what data was and was not relevant before sending up to the cloud. More analysis and computation was done closer to the device by leveraging the power of Intel® proces-sors, resulting in broad savings both in energy use and associated costs.

Now the same technology that GE and Intel use internally is available to you. By combining GE’s expertise in industrial processes with Intel’s cutting-edge computing and security technolo-gies, these two industry leaders have created GE Predix, an end-to-end solution that enables you to connect your assets and boost efficiency.

ABSTRACT

Figure 1. Predix* from GE lets you connect all your assets.* Predix is a trademark of General Electric Company.

Page 2: MAKE THE IIoT VISION - Intel · PDF fileThe Industrial Internet of Things (IIoT) is here—and you can harness its power with the GE Predix* platform. Built on the same technology

Predix can help you achieve a long list of goals, such as preventing equipment failures, optimizing your processes, and reducing energy costs. It can be applied to essentially any kind of asset—wheth-er those assets are machines in a factory, a car, an airplane, a building, or a train. Let’s examine how you can put the Predix to work in your facility.

The connectivity challenge

The challenges of the IIoT start with connectivity. Your facilities are full of machines that aren’t con-nected to an IT network. Even the equipment that can connect uses a bewildering array of protocols, networks, and applications. This leads to a long list of problems including:

• No standard way to connect machines to the cloud

• Multiple connectivity service providers

• A lack of interoperability between assets

• Inconsistent applications and application connectivity

• No plug-and-play capability for new, cloud-ready assets

You could retrofit your legacy equipment with a more standardized solution, but this is rarely a workable approach. The unique requirements of each asset make retrofitting a time-consuming and expensive process.

The other big challenge is building the analyt-ics and applications that will make use of your factory data. You have a lot of expertise on your operations, but turning this expertise into code is an enormous challenge with many pitfalls. For example, how can you make sure that you don’t create security holes when you connect your as-sets to the cloud?

What you need is an easy, secure way to connect machines from any vendor and of any vintage to a cloud platform optimized for the unique needs of industrial applications. That’s what GE and Intel have done with the Predix platform.

The Predix platform stretches from the edge to the cloud and incorporates:

• Predix Machine for easy-to-deploy intelligence at the edge

• Predix Connectivity Service to automatically connect the edge to the cloud

• Predix Cloud for applications and analytics tailored to industrial needs

This platform has already been widely deployed by GE and Intel, proving its value in a variety of applications. For example:

• A U.S. city wanted to lower its energy use. Adding smart cameras to the light posts made it possible to dim lights when they were not needed, cutting electricity costs by 16%.

• Another U.S. city found that loading zones and parking spaces were being misused, leading to traffic problems. The city used smart cameras to aid parking enforcement, reducing traffic by up to 30%.

• A manufacturer was struggling with excessive rework due to uneven heating in a thermal-ly-sensitive process. Adding IIoT-connected thermal sensors to the build stand is helping identify and eliminate rework.

Let’s take a closer look at the technologies that make these advances possible.

Figure 2. Intel® processors power endpoints, the cloud, and a range of Predix*-ready gateways.

* Predix is a trademark of General Electric Company.

Page 3: MAKE THE IIoT VISION - Intel · PDF fileThe Industrial Internet of Things (IIoT) is here—and you can harness its power with the GE Predix* platform. Built on the same technology

Easy-to-deploy intelligence at the edge

Predix Machine monitors your assets and uses edge analytics to take actions as needed. For ex-ample, an instance of Predix Machine could mon-itor vibration and shut down an asset that might fail soon, avoiding costly damage and downtime.

You don’t need an expensive retrofit to use Predix Machine. Instead, you can use Predix-ready gate-ways, which serve as “translators” between your existing equipment and the cloud.

Predix-ready gateways include a range of rug-gedized, Intel® processor-basedhardware from a variety of original equipment manufacturers (OEMs). These gateways offer a wide selection of compute power and industrial I/O options to meet your specific needs. For example, you can choose different gateways for different assets or for dif-ferent geographical locations.

Security is a top priority for these gateways. To avoid exposing your assets, several GE solu-tions deploy security at the edge using Intel Security technology as well as features built into Intel chips.

We’re all used to anti-virus software that blocks malicious code on our PCs. This type of security is good, but IIoT devices can do even better. These devices only need to run a specific set of software. So Intel’s hardware and software capabilities can be used in concert to restrict what software is allowed to run on the system. This technique, known as whitelisting, ensures that the gateway does exactly what you designed it to do, and nothing more.

Automatic connectivity

The Predix Connectivity Service automatically con-nects the gateways back to Predix Cloud. It does this with a virtual network comprised of cellular, fixed-line, and satellite technology. This service has two key benefits. First, it greatly simplifies your communications infrastructure and makes it easier to control your costs. Second, it works even in remote locations where normal internet access is not available, such as oil rigs and wind farms. Figure 3 shows how this connectivity aligns with the Intel® IIoT Reference Platform to provide a sophisticated, holistic connectivity solution.

Figure 3. Predix* from GE aligns with the Intel® IoT Reference Platform.

* Predix is a trademark of General Electric Company.

Page 4: MAKE THE IIoT VISION - Intel · PDF fileThe Industrial Internet of Things (IIoT) is here—and you can harness its power with the GE Predix* platform. Built on the same technology

A cloud built for industry

Industrial applications require special kinds of cloud services. The popular public cloud services simply are not suitable for industrial use—they lack the high levels of availability, security, and responsiveness that industrial users need.

Predix solves this problem with a custom-built infrastructure specifically designed for industrial applications. Intel and GE worked together closely to optimize infrastructure for Predix workloads, and to deploy security services with advanced tools for user authentication. To get a sense of the importance placed on security, 50% of the com-pute cycle is devoted to security.

One of the big advantages of Predix is that it uses Intel processor-based systems at both the edge and in the cloud. This architectural consistency

allows applications to migrate between the cloud and edge as needed. For example, a machine control application can be created and tested in the cloud, but deployed at the edge. This approach is particularly useful for low-latency applications that need to avoid the delay of going to the cloud and back.

At the software layer, GE chose Cloud Foundry be-cause of its vibrant ecosystem and fast pace of in-novation. GE optimized this open-source software for industrial applications, and built industrial-fo-cused services on top of it. For example, Predix offers a data store that is specifically optimized for storing and curating sensor data.

Predix also provides DevOps as a service, which delivers all of the tools required to develop, manage, test, and deploy code in an automat-ed fashion. This enables developers to rapidly deliver innovation.

Perhaps more importantly, Predix provides business ops (BizOps) tools. These tools enable developers to instrument their code so they can understand how it impacts the bottom line.

Finally, Predix includes a user interface (UI) and mobile applications component that provides a framework for using the services. The UI package also incorporates a modular design system that provides a context-driven user experience. The user gets the data they need at the time that they need it, whether they are an ops specialist in a data center or a technician in the field.

Make your IIoT ideas a reality

Whether it is real-time asset optimization, im-proved analytics and diagnostics, or predictive maintenance, the Predix platform is designed to support the continuous improvement of industrial business processes.

The Predix platform provides all of the capabilities to make it easy to create industrial solutions. See how you can start building your first industrial Internet application today at predix.com.

White Paper Sponsored by GE Digital and Intel

Figure 4. Predix* was specifically optimized for industrial users.

www.GE.com www.intel.com

* Predix is a trademark of General Electric Company.