CHALLENGES OF THE SMART GRID PROJECTS
Smart Grid projects usually involve data collection related to energy distribution (solar PV systems, electrical storages, energy distribution systems), remote parameterisation or control tasks. Therefore, in these cases, remote operation and high availability are of paramount importance. The Xserver.IoT.200 device was developed with these requirements in mind.
Ethernet
RS485
Easy and fast real-time cloud monitoring
and diagnostics
Anomaly Detection - Immediately identify when a system or process is experiencing an exception condition
Device Twins store state information about IoT devices (parameters, set point values, properties, etc.).
PLCs, Meters, Protection relays
Meters, Storages
These systems are usually operated without an operator, or are located far away or in a location that is difficult to access. Thus, full remote management, remote installation or updating of individual apps is of paramount importance. The best way to install these solutions is to connect to cloud solutions. Xserver.IoT.200 meets these needs to the maximum, and can be easily connected to Microsoft Azure, AWS, Google or IBM cloud systems.
CONVENIENT DASHBOARD
Our product comes with the IoT Explorer application, which provides support in configuration, app management (installation, update), diagnostic functions.
The other important aspect is to ensure proper reliability and availability, and the Xserver.IoT.200 product has been developed with these needs in mind, with built-in watchdog, redundant deployability (if one IoT server goes down, the other can take over its task).
Based on the feedback from our partners, there are a lot of specific needs for these projects, which we can implement in a .NET 6 C# environment using Visual Studio development environment. For which we provide many add-ons, freely downloadable from Github and Nuget. Of course, you can also use add-ons from other vendors that are designed in .NET 6 or NetStandard environment.
FOCUSING ON SECURITY
Today, IT Security is a key concern, as attacks against energy supply systems (data theft, blocking their operation or taking control from outside) are becoming more frequent. In the case of IoT Server 200, these requirements have been taken into account to the maximum, the system is based on the Linux operating system with a built-in firewall and brute-force attack protection.
The firmware of the IoT server is designed to prevent unauthorised code from running remotely. A high level of data encryption was a priority, so a built-in security chip can also support these needs. The communication takes place over SSH or HTTPS, where critical data is encrypted using AES-256. The IoT server is Microsoft Azure Certified. We pay special attention to continuous and long-term product support, so our products always meet the latest software and security requirements.
MAXIMUM UPTIME
Communication problems are usually more frequent in these systems, so it is crucial to be able to store the collected data temporarily. Our IoT servers try to minimise the occurrence of data loss by having built-in Onboard Storage, so that in the event of a loss of higher-level communication, they can temporarily store data (this storage has a capacity of several weeks).