Manufacturing Connect FAQs
How can I try Manufacturing Connect?
- Read about Manufacturing Connect here: Access the Manufacturing Connect Edge Web UI Manufacturing Connect User UI
Can I use Manufacturing Connect without Manufacturing Connect Edge?
No, Manufacturing Connect is based on the model purchased from Litmus. Manufacturing Connect is the management suite for Manufacturing Connect Edge.
Why don't I see device attributes, such as manufacturer and model number, in the device INFO tab?
These attributes are sent by the devices. If it does not display:
- Check the device status from the edge Devices pane to see if data is connected. See Step 6: Verify Edge Device Activation in Manufacturing Connect.
What could be some reasons that my device is not connecting?
- Try double checking your connection parameters.
- If the parameters are correct, check your firewall settings.
Why can I see device data in the RAW tab, but not in the EXPLORE tab?
Data sent to Manufacturing Connect must be in a special format, as shown in the JSON schema in the General Settings page. If Manufacturing Connect cannot parse incoming messages, the messages only appear in the Raw tab.
How can I remotely manage a device?
Manufacturing Connect offers the Remote UI feature. See Open Edge Devices.
Manufacturing Connect supports MQTT protocol to remotely manage a device:
MQTT
Manufacturing Connect supports 3 types of MQTT topics:
- request - to send manage requests to a device
- response - to receive responses from a device
- data - to receive data from a device
Request/response formats are not defined.
For example: If you can program your device to reboot when it receives {"command": "reboot"} from the request topic, you can reboot your device remotely.
If you open the MQTT tab on the Device Details form, you can see Request/Response tabs to manage MQTT devices online.
To accomplish management tasks, you must program your device.
The Batch Device Management feature offers operations similar to those described above, but you can define batch commands (MQTT) and schedule these commands to execute against a group of devices.
How can I visualize my data?
Use Manufacturing Connect Edge. All data that appears in the Explore tab is available in Manufacturing Connect Edge as well
Are messages sent from Manufacturing Connect Edge to Manufacturing Connect Secure?
- We do security testing with every release.
- We prevent security issues through REST and MQTT protocols. They only use secure transports, such as TLS and DTLS. We do not support unencrypted transports between the two products.
- All security credentials established during cloud activation are securely stores on the Manufacturing Connect Edge device and they are not exposed to the end user. It is impossible to alter these credentials after activation as long as physical security of the Manufacturing Connect Edge gateway is maintained.
What is the difference between Manufacturing Connect Alerts, Events, and Incidents?
- Alert - The Manufacturing Connect Alerts feature allows a user to define notifications based on rules. Rules comprise a set of conditions that define an abnormal state of a device. For example: No data received from a device in more than two minutes, or the temperature went below 30 degrees. First, define Actions. Actions are the types of notifications, such as Slack or Webhook. Then, create a Trigger. A trigger is a combination of device tags, a set of rules, and an action. Once triggered, Manufacturing Connect sends the alert notification to the defined destination. Alert notifications can be viewed on the Manufacturing Connect dashboard as well as from email and third-party web applications, such as Slack. The Incidents tab on the projects page lists the alerts that were generated.
- Event - Events list the Manufacturing Connect configuration activities that occurred for a project within a company. For example: Added a new project, or deployed a new device.
- Incident - If a device reaches an abnormal state according to the rules, then Manufacturing Connect will create a new incident and send notifications. The Incidents tab lists the alerts that were generated. When a device returns to a normal state, the open incident will be closed and Manufacturing Connect will send another notification with an incident resolved message.
How many Manufacturing Connect Edge devices can Manufacturing Connect manage?
The number of edge devices is not limited, provided you have allocated the appropriate resources. The billing is based on tags in use.
What is the ESXi version minimum requirement for Manufacturing Connect deployment?
We strongly recommend ESXi version 6.7 or higher.
What are the technical details I can verify before raising a support ticket?
Find out the following:
- The version of the Manufacturing Connect Edge and the Manufacturing Connect.
- The version of a component if it is not working.
- The type of license installed.
- If the network is properly configured.
- If the NTP/DNS settings are correct.
- If you are using the correct PLC driver and IP address.
How long is alert history retained within Manufacturing Connect?
Alert history is not deleted. It is kept as long as there is space in the database.
What happens if the database for alert history becomes full?
After the alert history database becomes full, the system stops accepting data. In upcoming releases, we will develop a more sophisticated data life cycle management.
Do any security settings, such as active directory settings or certificate policies, get deployed when implementing a template on a Manufacturing Connect Edge device from Manufacturing Connect?
Not at this time. In upcoming releases, Manufacturing Connect will be able to deploy LDAP/AD settings for various Manufacturing Connect Edge devices.
Can I deploy selected flows from a template to a selected Manufacturing Connect Edge device from Manufacturing Connect?
Currently, a template consists of: device configurations (settings and tags), analytics, flows, and connectors.
You can select a mix of both types and create as many templates as you want.
These templates can be uploaded from the Manufacturing Connect Admin Console or from the Manufacturing Connect.
You can create different groups of Manufacturing Connect Edge devices and select which template you want to deploy to a selected group of devices.
In upcoming releases, we will include CC as well as a few other configurations.
What BI tools can be connected to Manufacturing Connect?
- Manufacturing Connect supports the MySQL protocol for ClickHouse. If the BI tool supports MySQL, it can connect to ClickHouse. Some smart BI tools may use MySQL system tables that are not present in ClickHouse, so they should be tested.
- Manufacturing Connect allows you to connect to the ClickHouse underlying database. See https://clickhouse.tech/docs/en/interfaces/third-party/integrations/ to find the native connectors that ClickHouse uses.
Why am I unable to activate an edge device? How do I fix this?
When an activation fails, there will be an Activation Stage Message that reports the exact cause(s). Here are some potential fixes:
- Ensure port 443 is opened.
- Ensure 51820/UDP is open for the Manufacturing Connect Edge instance.
- Ensure the Remote Access protocol is not blocked at all.
- Ensure the time synchronizations setting between the Manufacturing Connect and Manufacturing Connect Edge is working properly.
- For Docker-run Manufacturing Connect Edge instances, check for NETADM capability.