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How to Use Integration

How to Use Integration

Owned by Sean Haley (Unlicensed)
Last updated: Jul 26, 2021 by Raj Manandhar

You can configure Connectors to several third-party cloud services in Voice of the Machine Edge. This will allow you to publish data from the edge directly to a cloud service provider or a database.


Prerequisite

Knowledge of the third-party cloud service provider.


Sending Data:

You can publish data to Integrated third-party applications directly with an Integration Topic or with Flows.

Cloud Service Providers

Voice of the Machine Edge lets you add connectors to enable integration with the following cloud service providers. Click the links to view each vendor's documentation

  • Microsoft Azure IoT Hub: Connect over SSL with this cloud service to integrate with other Azure services.
  • Amazon AWS IoT Core: Connect over SSL with this cloud service to integrate with other AWS services.
  • Google Cloud IoT Core: Integrate over SSL with Google data analytics services.
  • IBM Watson MQTT: Send data over SSL to the Watson IoT platform, which serves as the MQTT broker, publishing messages to subscribed clients.
  • Generic MQTT: Connect with Cloud using a generic MQTT broker (unsecure or over SSL).

Databases

In versions of Voice of the Machine Edge 1.4 or higher, you can integrate Voice of the Machine Edge with databases. You can enable database apps in the Voice of the Machine Edge Marketplace. 

Supported Databases:

  1. Microsoft SQL Server
  2. MongoDB
  3. MySQL
  4. PostgreSQL


Database Connector Details:

  • Provider: The name of the database service, such as MySQL.
  • Name: The name for the Connector, this can be any name you wish.
  • Hostname: For Marketplace database apps, this should be 127.0.0.1 for the localhost IP address.
  • Port: The port that the database runs on, typically 3306.
  • Username: The database username.
  • Password: The password for the database username.
  • Database: The name of the database that you create when you set it up for the first time.
  • Table: The table to connect to.

mysqldb1.png

Add a Third-Party Connector

To add a third-party connector:

  1. In the navigation panel, go to Integration.



  2. Click the + at the top right of the window.

  3. Select the provider.



  4.  Complete the Connector form, as shown in the following example.
    Note: Each connector will require parameters specific to the cloud service provider. Check the provider's vendor documentation for details.

Publish Data with Integration Topics

To send data from PLCs directly to third-party applications, you can enter a Topic name from DeviceHub. The following example sends data directly to MongoDB.

Before setting up an Integration subscription, you should check that the DeviceHub Topic has a large enough polling interval to ensure that the third-party application will not be flooded with too many messages from Voice of the Machine Edge DeviceHub.

To Publish Data to MongoDB:

  1. Click + to add a new Integration. This example uses a MongoDB instance from the Voice of the Machine Edge Marketplace.




  2. Click Actions > Enable for the third-party Integration to publish data to.



  3. Click the name of the third-party application to view the Subscribe page.
  4. Click  to add a subscription from a DeviceHub data Topic.

  5. Enter the topic copied from DeviceHub, and a description for the type of data to send to the third-party application.

    Make sure to check Enable when adding the subscription or from the Actions menu after adding the subscription.




  6. Click OK.

    Next Steps:

    The subscription will begin sending data from the DeviceHub PLC connection directly to the third-party application. To ensure that this is working, you can query the application.

Manage Third-Party Connectors

The following options enable third-party cloud connector management:

  • Edit
  • Remove
  • Enable/Disable

To access any of these options, click the Actions icon next to the listed connector.