CIE Components in Electronics
Eurotech, a long-time major provider of embedded technologies and leader in Internet of Things (IoT) enablement, has announced a partnership with CONTACT Software to provide end-to-end solutions for digital business models. Both companies develop open standards for the Industrial Internet of Things in the Eclipse Open Source Community.
The new joint offer combines Eurotech’s competence in edge computing with the core competence of CONTACT Software, the cloud back-end around the digital twins and the associated processes.
“We are very excited to have CONTACT Software as a strong IoT Solutions Partner in our ecosystem. CONTACT’s expertise, intimate knowledge and solid software offering for the product engineering process make it a perfect partner to provide seamless integrated solutions to customers that wish to leverage the benefits enabled by the IoT and a successful digital transformation,” said Robert Andres, Eurotech Group CSO.
Leveraging computational power at the edge is getting increasingly popular within many vertical industries. Regardless whether asset-intensive businesses want to implement new business models or need to achieve higher levels of operational excellence, it typically leads to the deployment of software-defined edge systems or IoT gateways. Eurotech’s technology components provide data, device and application management in the field, from the cloud to local computer units. They form the interface between sensors, machine controls and the CONTACT Elements for IoT backend for digital business models.
“Eurotech’s devices are also easily controlled and adapted via the cloud infrastructure,” explains Frank Patz-Brockmann, head of development at CONTACT Software. “In this way, we can implement complete solutions for demanding IIoT scenarios in which real-time capability and fast reaction are essential.”
Eurotech builds the bridge to various machine protocols such as Modbus, OPC-UA or Siemens S7 and provides a development environment for its Multi-service IoT Edge Gateways that is considered a milestone in edge computing. “When it comes to integrating field technology with Eurotech Gateways, the flexibility is simply impressive,” says CONTACT’s manager Patz-Brockmann, “and the openness of their Edge platform allows us to deploy it for many IoT and Industry 4.0 use cases”.
Eclipse Kura is the open source IoT Middleware that forms the basis of Eurotech’s commercially supported IoT device software stack. Eclipse Kura also runs platforms like the Raspberry PI, enabling a prototyping environment that ensures software portability from open hardware to application-optimised systems in demanding vertical applications.
