Help!!

I have 10,000 Cummins Generators in Eastern EUrope that I need connectivity to with out back end system. I have been tod several time, no problem, but to date no results.

 

So, exactly what do you need help with?

 

Sounds as if the Easy Connect Netbiter could be a solution for you. It is a cloud based solution, where you connect a piece of hardware to your generator panel and the hardware connects to a server where alarms, loging etc can be managed.

http://www.netbiter.com/solutions/power_generators.shtml

//Patrick Lansdorf

 

It is not as easy as anyone wishes

10000 generators = 10000 problems to solve over & over again. We have customers with 100's of thousands of water-treatment, generators, etc 'online', and most end up doing via cellular to avoid customer resistance (the 'no problem, but it never happens' which you mention).

What commonly happens is the site generator manager says, "This is critical - sure, we can give you access". Then the IT guys say "No way". Even if a big manager forces IT to say "Okay", don't expect it to work for at least 6 months, then it can also STOP working at any time when IT forgets what 'rule #237' does and deletes it.

1) Do you have Ethernet in the generator? Probably not - most gensets are RS-485 or even some legacy current loop.
1a) So you need to confirm you can access the genset via either wired Ethernet or WiFi. This is cost and money
1b) grounding issues - generators make power and one can have horrific surge/ground problems when a genset fails. So wireless comms helps (gives you 100% isolation). Wired Ethernet's not so bad since it has native 1kv to 3kv transformer isolation in the RJ45 connector.
1c) analog dial-up? Not my cup of tea, so I'll offer nothing on this.

2) Once you have Ethernet access, you need the genset to act in a 'mobile-originated' manner - it needs to call out and push up data to a server. Yes, there are ways you can 'call in', but in the end if Ethernet and IP is involved, this involves security, costs, customer resistance from a security risk stand-point. Bathign cats and pullign teeth is easer than talking to 10000 IT departments!
2a) So you might need some form of small programmable box/gateway to pull data from the generator and push it up to a central server.
2b) call-in via Internet? If you had 10 genset, then okay you could spend a year fighting 10 IT battles and get 8 or 9 opened, but with 10000 you'll be lucky to have 500 of them connected many years from now.

3) if you wish firewall access via the customer site,
3a) you have 10000 wire problems
3b) you have 10000 'IT' conversations where their natural reaction will be to say 'heck no - you can't connect your 'thingy' on our network because we are liable if you create a security hole'. Who'd want to get fired because your link to your generator is sloppy?
3c) as mentioned above, if your device can connect out (ideally using DHCP and dynamic IP), then many IT departments will accept your genset on a less-secure 'guest' subnet as long as you promise it is a read-only link and no external control is possible. This takes creative lying sometimes because if you say 'yes I can control genset remotely', many IT people mistakenly assume this means you can force viruses down & infect other pieces of equipment.

4) I would try to define a method to get a smart device to push your genset data out via Ethernet/WiFi/other-Ethernet-wireless and design a good document. Some percentage of users will agree if they trust you know what you are doing. We have (for example) been able to get 27,000 controllers onto a specific auto-parts chain's secure backbone linking out via a single proxy because we had someone speak in a language which the IT-security people understood.

5) as a side-comment - a lot of automotive shops, repair shops have started offering 'public WiFi' for customer and visiting salesmen use. You should find access to this almost trivial.

6) When the direct Ethernet/WiFi fails, you will need to look at cellular, which offers its own problems.
6a) some gensets will be located in places without cell signal
6b) with 10000 units, you may have a dozen different cell carriers to deal with. That won't be fun.
6c) of course, data costs money. So your cost of access will be variable and somewhat unbounded if you are not careful.

I'd suggest going to www.digi.com and arrange to talk to someone in their European office (they have in germany, Belguim, France, others). Nothing in Russia, but they do have partners in most countries.

 

Hello,
I think the solution can be embedded computer with GPRS modem like Moxa. You can log the data from Generator using ethernet or RS232/422/485 and transmit it to any location via GPRS.

Regards,
Andrzej
www.modbus.pl

 

Just be aware that in the US at least, GPRS is going away rapidly, with carriers not yet shutting it down, but pulling resources away from GPRS so throughput is dropping down to sub-dialup speeds in many places. Not a problem for small data updates now and then (like from a genset), but a problem if you need to do web browsing, Java applets or large file transfers.

The reason is that 'radio realestate' is a limited resource for any carrier, and moving to 3G and faster technologies allows them to have more revenue (more users & more traffic) from their fixed resource.

This probably won't happen so soon in Eastern Europe, but it is something to keep in mind for future plans or ROI spanning more than 3 or 4 years.

 

This is the exact problem Port40's Automation Enterprise Management was meant to solve.

You are still going to need enable each of your sites with outbound access to the Internet - there is simply no way around it. Port40's Enterprise client does that in an IT friendly way - HTTP, SSL, and web services.

Not going to be easy, as you say, but nothing worthwhile ever is.

 

Older Cummins is likely Lonworks communications. On the newer product they took a step backwards and went to Modbus.

You could have opportunity to setup a wireless network from wireless phone providers with products like Sierra Wireless provides.

Or, you consider something like a Loytec LINX. It does Modbus and LON with an OPC server. Link that up to a wireless node and bring back information via OPC, and securely.