Octave All-in-One Edge-to-Cloud Solution
Simplifies Industrial IoT Infrastructure, Helping Ekatra Launch
Leak Monitoring Application for Liquid Fertilizer Tanks in Only
Three Months
Sierra Wireless (NASDAQ: SWIR) (TSX: SW), the leading IoT
solutions provider that combines devices, network services and
software to unlock value in the connected economy, today announced
that Ekatra successfully reduced the development time of its new
Industrial IoT (IIoT) liquid fertilizer tank monitoring application
by 50 percent using Octave™, the all-in-one, edge-to-cloud solution
for connecting industrial assets. Octave enabled Ekatra to easily
integrate IoT edge devices into industrial tank equipment, extend
application intelligence to these IoT edge devices, and then
integrate tank data into their cloud, allowing them to cut
development time for the application from six to three months.
“Small and medium-sized companies are driving the growth of the
Industrial IoT with innovative, practical, problem-solving
applications that are transforming industries,” said Olivier
Pauzet, VP Product IoT Solutions at Sierra Wireless. “Ekatra is an
excellent example, transforming regular liquid fertilizer tanks
into smart tanks that can tell you when they are leaking or
automatically stop themselves from being overfilled, and in only
three months. By eliminating the need to build IIoT infrastructure
from scratch, Octave makes it easier and faster to get IIoT
applications from concept to market, allowing practically any
company today to begin realizing the benefits of Industry 4.0.”
In addition to reducing development time, Octave has delivered
Ekatra additional benefits, including:
- Edge Intelligence and Distributed Processing:Octave
enabled Ekatra to develop and deploy edge processing rules in its
IoT gateways from the cloud using simple Javascript code. This
provides Ekatra with additional flexibility and capabilities, such
as processing and filtering tank data at the IoT gateway before
it’s transmitted to the cloud. Data transmission costs are reduced,
while edge device battery life is extended by minimizing the power
they use to transmit data.
- Predictable Pricing: The Octave subscription includes
full access to the Sierra Wireless Global Wireless Network,
development tools, and cloud APIs with a predictable message-based
pricing that enables Ekatra to pay for the data they need, when
they need it.
- Easy Application Updates: With Octave, Ekatra can send
firmware and application updates over the air to thousands of
devices, making it easy to update their application to meet
specific customers’ needs or to add new capabilities over
time.
- End-To-End Security: Octave devices are pre-provisioned
to automatically connect to an encrypted global connectivity
network with proven security measures to establish a trusted
connection between edge devices and the cloud, helping Ekatra
ensure that no malicious actors steal or alter customer data.
- Device and Fleet Management: Octave provides single-user
interface to develop at the edge, in the cloud, monitor, control,
update and maintain all edge devices and assets.
“Octave freed us from having to build any IIoT infrastructure
for our new fertilizer tank monitoring application, allowing our
team to focus almost exclusively on building the application
itself,” said Alexey Klimenko, founder and CEO of Ekatra. “In
addition to reducing total development time for the application,
Octave simplified practically everything involved in the deployment
and management of the application’s IIoT infrastructure for us. By
making it easy for us to get the right equipment data, at the right
time, to the right system, Octave has not only improved our new
application’s ROI, but also saved me and my team from a lot of
headaches dealing with IIoT hardware, cellular service, device
certification, embedded software and device management.”
Lowering Costs by Proactively Detecting Fertilizer Tank
Leaks
Owned by large farms and fertilizer distribution companies,
leaks from liquid fertilizer tanks – caused by corrosion, problems
with their liners, or overfilling the tank – can lead to costs of
$100,000 or more related to tank repair, lost liquid fertilizer,
contamination clean-up costs and government fines.
Recognizing the opportunity to reduce these costs, Ekatra
partnered with Heartland Tank Services, one of the nation’s leading
providers of liquid tank construction, internal containment liners,
and inspection services, to develop a new IIoT application. By
collecting data on nitrogen fertilizer concentration, temperature,
pressure and drain liquid level, the application would alert tank
owners, operators, and service companies if a tank had a leak in
real-time, and also automatically close fertilizer intake valves to
prevent tanks from being overfilled.
Octave Provides the Industrial IoT Infrastructure Needed to
Quickly Create a Smart Tank
In order to proactively detect fertilizer leaks, Ekatra
engineered and built unique sensors. However, the key to success
was connecting them to Ekatra’s Tank Monitoring cloud application.
Each sensor is equipped with a Modbus interface and Ekatra needed
to figure out the most efficient way to connect the sensors to the
cloud. After determining it would be faster to buy an IIoT
infrastructure solution than to build their own, Ekatra embarked on
an evaluation process of IoT gateway solutions, assessing these
solutions based on their cost, support for LPWA cellular
standards(LTE-M), available cellular plans, ability to perform
firmware and application updates over the air, and nine other
criteria. Octave emerged from this evaluation with a score
establishing it as the clear leader, leading Ekatra to partner with
Sierra Wireless to bring their new IIoT liquid fertilizer tank
monitoring application to market.
Octave greatly simplified the IoT application development
process for Ekatra, enabling them to connect their Modbus-enabled
sensors to the cellular network using Sierra Wireless’ FX30 IoT
gateways. In addition, they were able to use JavaScript to connect
the FX30 IoT gateways to their cloud-based IoT application platform
in less than two days. Combined with Octave documentation and
support that allowed them to quickly understand how to use the
solution, Ekatra was able to develop and commercialize their IIoT
liquid fertilizer tank monitoring application in three months –
three months less they would have expected if they built the IIoT
infrastructure themselves.
Liquid Fertilizer Tank Remote Monitoring Application Already
Delivering Benefits
Heartland Tank Services has already deployed Ekatra’s liquid
tank monitoring application at sites throughout the United States,
with plans to extend the application to the thousands of tanks it
services over the next 12 months. Already Heartland Tank Services
is seeing benefits from the new application, with their team able
to respond to tank leaks quicker, and fewer problems with tanks
being overfilled.
“As a pioneer in using internal PVC liners as a primary
containment mechanism for storage tanks, Heartland Tank Companies
has been at the forefront in using innovative new technologies to
improve tank storage since its founding,” said Chris Brooks,
president of Heartland Tank Services. “Our partnership with Ekatra
to deploy this new liquid fertilizer tank monitoring applications
builds on this heritage, allowing us to help our customers reduce
costs by detecting tank leaks early. By providing us with the
ability to deliver real-time data on tank leaks to our customers,
this application enables us to offer our customers a completely new
service, one that significantly improves our value
proposition.”
About Ekatra
Ekatra’s mission is to protect communities, the environment, and
businesses with AI and IoT by predicting and preventing disasters,
accidents, theft, and damage. Ekatra helps organizations that
utilize large numbers of high-value physical assets and struggle to
protect them against theft, tampering, and disrepair. Ekatra’s
proprietary solutions protect assets via smart IoT devices with
specialized sensors that learn to predict and prevent disasters,
accidents, theft, and damage in a unique way with Edge AI machine
learning. Unlike costly, traditional security solutions that
leverage personnel and video cameras, Ekatra’s Protection as a
Service solutions are agentless, connected wirelessly and detect
threats in creative, new ways. For more information, visit:
https://ekatraiot.com.
About Sierra Wireless
Sierra Wireless (NASDAQ: SWIR) (TSX: SW) is the leading IoT
solutions provider that combines devices, network and software to
unlock value in the connected economy. Companies globally are
adopting IoT to improve operational efficiency, create better
customer experiences, improve their business models and create new
revenue streams. Whether it is a solution to help a business
securely connect edge devices to the cloud, or a software/API
solution to help manage processes associated with billions of
connected assets, or a platform to extract real-time data to make
the best business decisions, Sierra Wireless will work with you to
create the right industry-specific solution for your next IoT
endeavor. Sierra Wireless has more than 1,300 employees globally
and operates R&D centers in North America, Europe and Asia. For
more information, visit www.sierrawireless.com.
Connect with Sierra Wireless on the IoT Blog at
http://www.sierrawireless.com/iot-blog, on Twitter at
@SierraWireless, on LinkedIn at
http://www.linkedin.com/company/sierra-wireless and on YouTube at
http://www.youtube.com/SierraWireless.
Forward Looking Statements
This press release contains forward-looking statements that
involve risks and uncertainties. These forward-looking statements
relate to, among other things, plans and timing for the
introduction or enhancement of our services and products,
statements about future market conditions, supply conditions,
channel and end customer demand conditions, revenues, gross
margins, operating expenses, profits, and other expectations,
intentions, and plans contained in this press release that are not
historical fact. Our expectations regarding future revenues and
earnings depend in part upon our ability to successfully develop,
manufacture, and supply products that we do not produce today and
that meet defined specifications. When used in this press release,
the words "plan", "expect", "believe", and similar expressions
generally identify forward-looking statements. These statements
reflect our current expectations. They are subject to a number of
risks and uncertainties, including, but not limited to, changes in
technology and changes in the wireless data communications market.
In light of the many risks and uncertainties surrounding the
wireless data communications market, you should understand that we
cannot assure you that the forward-looking statements contained in
this press release will be realized.
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version on businesswire.com: https://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20200929005488/en/
Kim Homeniuk Sierra Wireless Media Relations phone: +1 604 233
8028 pr@sierrawireless.com
David Climie Sierra Wireless Investor Relations phone: +1 604
321 1137 dclimie@sierrawireless.com
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