Common Gateway Platform for Protocol-Independent Industrial Data Access
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Solution Overview
Problem
Industrial automation systems generate vast amounts of data from various sources, requiring applications to discover and interact with multiple data storage locations and protocols, leading to complexity and the need for frequent updates when protocol or location changes occur.
Innovation Solution
A common gateway platform system with adapters, brokers, and applications that use a universal protocol to facilitate data acquisition from industrial automation environments, allowing applications to request data without direct connection to storage and enabling protocol-independent communication.
Engineering Contradictions & Design Principles
Engineering Contradiction Analysis
1Adaptability or versatility
If applications directly connect to multiple data storage locations with different protocols, then data acquisition capability is improved, but system complexity increases and requires frequent updates when protocols change
Solution Approach 1:
The patent introduces a gateway as an intermediary component that sits between applications and multiple data storage locations. The gateway handles protocol translation and communication, allowing applications to acquire data from various sources without directly implementing knowledge of each protocol. This mediator approach resolves the contradiction by maintaining high adaptability while reducing application complexity.
Solution Approach 2:
The gateway is designed as a universal component that can communicate with multiple different data storage protocols through a single interface. It provides multi-functional capability to handle various protocols (SQL, NoSQL, file systems, etc.) while presenting a unified access method to applications, thereby improving versatility without increasing system complexity.
2Ease of operation
If applications must know and adapt to every data storage protocol, then direct data access is improved, but maintenance burden increases due to frequent protocol changes
Solution Approach 1:
The gateway serves as a maintenance buffer by absorbing protocol change impacts. When data storage protocols change, only the gateway needs to be updated, not the applications. This intermediary layer protects applications from maintenance burdens while preserving ease of data access.
Solution Approach 2:
The system is segmented into distinct layers: applications, gateway, and data storage locations. This segmentation isolates protocol-specific functionality in the gateway layer, allowing independent maintenance and updates without affecting other system components, thereby reducing overall maintenance burden.
3Adaptability or versatility
If a universal protocol interface is introduced, then adaptability to different data sources is improved, but communication overhead increases
Solution Approach 1:
The gateway implements a universal protocol interface that provides protocol-independent communication between applications and data storage locations. This single universal interface improves adaptability while the gateway's intelligent routing and translation capabilities minimize communication overhead by optimizing data transmission paths.
Data Source
AI summary
Systems, methods, and software disclosed herein relate to a common gateway platform system. In an implementation, program instructions direct a computing system to execute a common gateway platform environment comprising an adapter comprising an adapter name identification, a broker connected to the adapter, and an application connected to the adapter. The application also generates an action configured according to a common gateway platform protocol, transmit the action to the broker, and receive a reaction from the broker. The broker is configured to identify the adapter based on the adapter identifier and transmit the action to the adapter. The broker also receives the reaction from the adapter and transmit the reaction to the application. The adapter is configured to acquire the data from the industrial automation environment based on an adapter instruction in the action, generate the reaction comprising the acquired data, and transmit the reaction to the broker.