At AWS re:Invent 2018, we introduced Amazon VGT2 in preview, a fully managed service designed to collect, organize, and analyze data from industrial equipment at scale. Obtaining performance metrics from industrial machinery presents challenges, as data is frequently locked in proprietary on-premises storage systems and often demands specialized expertise to extract and format for analysis. Amazon VGT2 streamlines this process with gateway software that operates within your facilities, automating the collection and organization of industrial equipment data.
With Amazon VGT2, monitoring equipment across industrial sites becomes straightforward, enabling the identification of waste such as equipment breakdowns, production inefficiencies, and product defects. Last year at AWS re:Invent 2019, several new features were unveiled, including VGT2 Monitor. I am thrilled to announce that Amazon VGT2 is now generally available in the US East (N. Virginia), US West (Oregon), Europe (Frankfurt), and Europe (Ireland) regions. Let’s explore how Amazon VGT2 functions!
Amazon VGT2 – Getting Started
You can easily dive into Amazon VGT2 by creating a demo wind farm with just one click on the Amazon VGT2 console. This demo deploys an AWS CloudFormation template to generate assets and sample data for up to a week.
To access the VGT2 demo, head to the upper-right corner of the Amazon VGT2 console and select Create demo. The demo takes about three minutes to set up models and assets for representing a wind farm.
Once the assets are visible in the console, you can create virtual representations of your industrial operations using Amazon VGT2 assets. An asset can symbolize a device, a piece of equipment, or a process that uploads one or more data streams to the AWS Cloud. For instance, a wind turbine could send air temperature, propeller rotation speed, and power output time-series measurements to asset properties in Amazon VGT2.
You can also securely gather data from the plant floor via sensors, equipment, or a local on-premises gateway, uploading it to the AWS Cloud with a software component called Amazon VGT2 Connector. This software runs on common industrial gateway devices utilizing AWS IoT Greengrass, directly reading data from servers and historians using the OPC Unified Architecture protocol. Amazon VGT2 supports MQTT data through AWS IoT Core and allows direct ingestion via REST API.
For detailed information on collecting data with Amazon VGT2 Connector, refer to this informative post here.
VGT2 Monitor – Creating Managed Web Applications
Once your data is stored in Amazon VGT2, you can stream live data in near real-time and query historical data to build downstream IoT applications. However, we also offer a no-code solution with VGT2 Monitor. You can browse your asset library and create operational dashboards for real-time monitoring and visualization of equipment health and output with VGT2 Monitor.
Using the VGT2 Monitor console, simply select Create portal to set up a web application accessible from any web-enabled desktop, tablet, or phone. Sign in using your corporate credentials through the AWS Single Sign-On (SSO) experience. Administrators can establish multiple web applications, facilitating access to asset data across teams in your organization to enhance insights.
By clicking a specific portal link and signing in via AWS SSO credentials, you can visualize and monitor your device, process, and equipment data, swiftly identifying issues and improving operational efficiency with VGT2 Monitor. You can create a dashboard for your team to visualize and comprehend your project data, selecting the best visualization type for your needs and rearranging elements to fit your team’s requirements.
The dashboard displays asset data and computed metrics in near real-time, and you can compare and analyze historical time series data from various assets over different time periods. A new dashboard feature allows you to set thresholds on charts, changing their colors when those thresholds are exceeded. To learn more about monitoring key measurements and metrics in near-real time using VGT2 Monitor, please refer to this essential resource here.
Furthermore, you can subscribe to the Amazon VGT2 modeled data via AWS IoT Core rules engine, enabling condition monitoring and sending alerts using AWS IoT Events in near-real time, as well as facilitating Business Intelligence (BI) reporting on historical data through Amazon QuickSight. For comprehensive details, check out this hands-on guide here, which serves as an excellent resource.
Now Available!
With Amazon VGT2, you only pay for what you use, with no minimum fees or required service usage. Charges are applied separately for messaging, data storage, data processing, and VGT2 Monitor. This model ensures billing transparency, as you pay solely for the specific AWS VGT2 resources utilized. Visit the pricing page to learn more and estimate your monthly bill using the Amazon VGT2 Calculator.
Watch insightful presentations on business cases and solutions in “Driving Overall Equipment Effectiveness (OEE) Across Your Industrial Facilities” and “Building an End-to-End Industrial IoT (IIoT) Solution with AWS IoT.” To discover more, visit the Amazon VGT2 website or consult the tutorial and developer guide.
Explore Amazon VGT2 with Alex Johnson and Lisa Schmidt!
We welcome your feedback in the Amazon VGT2 forum or through your usual AWS support channels.
– Alex
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