Micro-services
Gapit has developed standard micro-services for a wide variety of automation components. Micro-services works as a translator between the automation world and the IT world. Equipment communicating over MQTT, Bacnet IP, Modbus TCP, SNMP and standard REST API are supported out of the box. Our typical implementation time for a new product is 2-5 days depending on communication complexity. The list of supported equipment is constantly growing. You will find a full updated list on support.gapit.io – “Wall of integration”. The micro-service architecture is scalable from one to thousands of devices. Micro-services are made as standard modules resulting in minimal integration time and cost.
Every micro-service comes with a predefined dashboard. Gapit cooperates with industry leading companies to build as much knowledge into the micro-services as possible. This enables our clients to do troubleshooting without the assistance of equipment experts.
Powerful visualization
Gapit uses the popular visualization platform Grafana for dashboards. This is the leading open platform for analytics and monitoring. It has built-in support for a range of advanced features such as prediction algorithms and various mathematical calculations. User friendliness is at core of Grafana making it the perfect tool for both new and more experienced users. A wide range of data sources are supported as well as integrations with common notification platforms for alert distribution. Grafana is constantly updated. Please take a look at grafana.com for the latest information. The flexibility of Grafana makes it easy for clients to change their own dashboards or do customization in cooperation with one of our Grafana experts. For clients having their own visualization platform, Gapit can deliver a custom solution with only data collection, leaving the visualization part to the clients. Gapit offers training to give clients the confidence to tweak their own systems.
Data storage
All collected data are stored in a specialized time series database. The database is capable of handling up to several hundred thousands signals per second. The database has a well documented API making it easy to integrate other tools and services and distribute data across different applications.
All collected data is time stamped when entering the database. Data aggregation and queries can be done on all collected variables disregarding the source of origin. The consistent time stamp makes it possible to find the root cause or sequence of events of an unwanted situation, eliminating the uncertainty caused by the lack of synchronization between the individual data sources.
Open technology
All systems delivered by Gapit are based on open source software. This makes it possible to constantly keep ahead of the competition with the latest cutting edge solutions. At the same time it maximizes flexibility and security. Open source also makes it possible to operate without any licenses. This means the customers can freely create users and dashboards and have no limitations on number of tags and signals. Source code can also be tweaked for further customization if needed.
Implementation
Gapit offers two main ways of doing the implementation. It can be a cloud solution with communication between client location and the Gapit data cluster, or in a self hosted solution at the clients location. The cloud solution offers a a low cost implementation that is always updated and monitored. This is ideal for clients without their own IT infrastructure.
For sites with a lot of equipment and strict policy on data security such as datacenters, a self hosted solution will be the best choice. The self hosted solution can be set-up on a dedicated server or a virtual instance. The Gapit solution runs on Linux servers. Both Redhat and Ubuntu LTS are supported. For self hosted solutions a support agreement is recommended to ensure that software and services are kept up to date. Remote access for Gapit personnel through a secure line allows us to provide assistance with troubleshooting and dashboard configuration quickly and at a low cost.
