Hello!
I am testing an Ignition EDGE gateway with a 3G connection to the gateway network. I would like to get a better usage of 3G data and how should I set the EDGE gateway up to optimize data consumption.
I have checked that there is always 1 - 3 kb / sec of transmission over the gateway network, this will represent no problem when doing it inside a LAN but bacame a “lot” of data when working in cellular networks.
Hope you can show me some ideas.
Thank you!
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It will cost more but MQTT will reduce the total data sent.
I am polling, not an Edge Gateway but a remote device over 3G. To give you an idea I am polling 1 float every second which equates to circa 100MB data per day.
I would look into optimisation of what this data you are currently seeing is being used by. How many tags are you polling and how often?
Also, I would imagine there is some periodic handshaking between the Edge and the Full Server, especially if you have local client fallback enabled.
There are SIM packages you can get that let you monitor the data in real time, not just wait for the bill coming in every month. Note that some providers will just cut you off with no warning once your cap has been reached. You should be using M2M sims. Some M2M sims come with a default 12hr connection cycle, i.e. every 12 hours it will disconnect itself from it’s provider and reconnect. This might only take a second or 2 but with OpenVPN it is long enough for the tunnel to go down which then may take 3 minutes to reestablish itself. You didn’t mention VPN but you should use one. Most industrial cellular routers have OpenVPN compatibility amongst others.
@dcamp1 has done a lot of work in this area in the states, not sure where you are based. He has used a Private Cellular Network which I have not.
Here’s some more information that may help you make a decision on what to use.
I do use MQTT and the Sparkplug B 3.1.1 protocol. Here are some of the nice features of using this protocol.
I only publish TAGS ever 3 minutes and if a TAG has NOT changed it does not get published (This is a great feature of SPARKPLUG B) Example: If you have a BOOLEAN tag that only changes a few times a day, then there is NO need to publish that TAG ever 3 minutes!
Also if you’re not going to monitor (and do something with) the “KEEP ALIVE” pings that go back and forth between the edge device and gateway, then you can slow them down and again save on BANDWIDTH.
All of my remote devices have anywhere between 20 and 50 tags and I consume anywhere between 300 MB to 650 MB of bandwidth each month.
Now, I also have an alarm call list for each remote that sends out SMS/EMAILS several times
a month (30 - 50 times ea mo.). This is also part of the monthly bandwidth usage.
I also have a group of support people that can remotely log into each device to check for detailed status reports of the local hardware. This is also part of the monthly bandwidth usage.
Hope this helps, and Good Luck!
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Hi Guys,
Thank you for your answers. I am currently using the Gateway Network Sync. Services and monitoring 40 tags. Our provider indicates we have a consumption of about 3Gb/week which is a lot. Turning to sparkplug is a valuable option, although we still think there should be something we are doing wrong. Ping is set to 60 seconds and it does not use lot of bytes. There is data transfer all time between the main gateway and the EDGE one with an averga consumption of 2kb/sec in and out. Before turning to MQTT I would like to know if there is a setting I can set to manage in a better way the data usage. I am located in Peru, here operators show data consumption as well on their applications. Hope you have more comments for me. Thank you!!
I’m using MQTT with about 40 tags and my bandwith usage per MONTH is between 350 - 550 Mb, well under 1 Gig.
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What about usage when tag counts are up in the thousands or 10s of thousands? We currently use the Gateway Area Network (GAN) in a Hub and Spoke infrastructure which is at a constant 4Kbps at each site. But we leverage Ignitions UDTs for complex tag structure, remote tag historian, store and forward, and alarms. Does changing to MQTT replace the GAN connection? Does it still leverage the same Store and Forward mechanism for tags and alarms? I have searched and can’t find anything related to this specifically. Again, each site has its own Ignition Gateway with a data collection project specific to that site…is MQTT best used for getting data up to the central server and do all tag management there instead? Where does Sparkplug come into place in this?