Previously, we explored how FTS360 has incorporated data security as a key component of its design and the value acquired in adopting MQTT as its communication protocol. In this final post, we discuss how this foundation of security and reliability offers a platform capable of real-time response in support of critical environmental events.
It is true that FTS360 is a data warehouse and visualization software that oversees a powerful and smart Industrial Internet of Things (IIoT) for remote monitoring. However, it also acts as the Network Manager, responding automatically and intelligently to the field data by issuing reconfiguration commands to stations as conditions change. FTS360 also has the power to adjust and reconfigure the sampling activity of different devices on the network in real-time.
“For example, you could have FTS360 subscribe to an MQTT-based weather station that is listening to the snowpack at the top of a mountain,” says Sean Daniel, FTS Software Manager. “And it samples the snowpack every hour. Suddenly there’s a delta change of a foot of snow, and you want to know where the snow melt went.”
When FTS360 gets the message of the sudden snow melt, it can send a command to all the weather stations downstream to change the sample rate from hourly to every five minutes and get a five-minute resolution of where all that water went.
“When nothing is happening and those rivers are one-foot deep, the sensors are sampling every hour. But as soon as the snow melts and those rivers are going up to three-feet deep, you can tell exactly what’s happening on a five-minute basis. And once a certain time period passes, or one of the stations reports that the river is running with a foot of water again, the FTS360 can send a new configuration to the stations and reset them back to an hour.”
FTS360 can do all of this automatically. By setting up alerts, and writing scripts with pre-defined actions, FTS360 will execute as per your design, 24/7 — changing station configurations and executing commands using the MQTT protocol and two-way telemetry. Through MQTT and layers of security, FTS360 means unprecedented security, reliability and responsiveness in remote environmental monitoring.
For agencies and businesses engaged in remote data collection, FTS360 provides a modern, secure, scalable, and reliable platform for managing networks and data. To learn more about FTS360 and how it can provide greater situational awareness in your environmental monitoring operations, contact us today.