Predix Edge Applications and Services Release Notes 2.2.0

New Features

This release contains the following new features:

EGD Dynamic Binding

The EGD Protocol Adapter has been enhanced to support Dynamic Binding. It can now automatically determine changes in the configuration of the EGD controller and adapt in real time, adjusting all data tag subscriptions.

IGS Adapter

A new IGS Protocol Adapter is now available. This adapter allows Predix Edge to connect to Kepware’s Industrial Gateway Server (IGS). IGS is a third-party product that runs on a Windows Server and can connect to 200+ industrial protocols. IGS then converts the protocol data to OPC-UA to be consumed by other applications. In this initial release, the IGS Adapter can be configured to subscribe to OPC-DA data sources via IGS. The adapter works in tandem with the Predix Edge OPC-UA Protocol Adapter to subscribe to the OPC-DA results and publish them on the Predix Edge Data Broker.

MQTT Protocol Adapter Authentication

The MQTT adapter can now be configured to authenticate to the external MQTT source using a username and password.

OPC-UA Protocol Adapter

The following capabilities have been added to the OPC-UA Protocol Adapter:

Data tag node browsing, including hierarchy – An application can browse the OPC-UA server and discover all of its available nodes programmatically. Node browsing provides the ability to browse the tree of objects to a configurable depth.
Read data tags metadata – An application can programmatically interrogate a given node in the tree and return the list of node attributes.

Resolved Issues

The following known issue has been resolved:

MQTT Protocol Adapter on Raspberry Pi: When the MQTT protocol adapter on Raspberry Pi loses its connection/signal with the Broker, the adapter can now come back online/establish a connection by itself without a restart.

Known Issues

This release has the following known issues:

Transmitting Frequently Changing Data: When using OSI-PI to transmit frequently changing data to the Cloud or to an internal application, Edge Engineering guarantees the OPC-UA protocol adapter will transmit up to 100 tags per second. If you are transmitting data at a rate higher than 100 tags per second for an extended period of time, the stability of the application is not guaranteed.
IGS Configuration Updates During IGS Connection Failure: During IGS OPC-DA configuration updates, if IGS is unreachable due to a connection failure or invalid IP/PORT configuration, the IGS adapter will enter into a retry stage in an attempt to reach the unreachable IGS and eventually timeout based on the retry interval specified in the configuration file. However, data will still be retrieved indefinitely based on the previous configuration until a valid configuration with reachable IGS server IP and PORTS are applied.
Raspberry Pi: Cloud Gateway on Raspberry Pi is known to fail after running for an extended priod of time, due to insufficient memory on the Raspberry Pi device.
OPC-UA Browsing: Technically, it is possible for an OPC-UA server to be configured with child nodes that refer to ancestor nodes. The OPC-UA Browser does not account for this corner use case. If the functionality is used against a server with nodes configured in this manner, it may result in an infinite loop.