Edge2Web Flow Server is a data orchestration solution for building, deploying, and operating a wide range of server-side industrial applications. Based on Edge2Web's proprietary flow engine, Flow Server apps deliver secure, bi-directional access to all data and analytic services provided by your IIoT platform.
Flow Server's scheduler console allows administrators to easily configure task execution plans, and the log console gives admins immediate access to task execution status and history.
Flow server gives developers everything they need to create sophisticated server-side applications.
Integrate your enterprise
Building powerful data orchestration processes has never been easier. Edge2Web's flow editor gives you a fast, structured canvas for accessing and manipulating data, executing analytics, capturing key operating events, and notifying support personnel as needed. In concert with your IIoT platform's value-added services, Flow Server tasks execute an unlimited array of server-side operations such as data aggregation, anomaly detection, KPI calculations, trend predictions, and many others.
At the core of Flow Server is Edge2Web's unique flow engine, a third generation BPM-based technology that delivers all of the power needed to drive sophisticated orchestration apps. Popular product features include parallel execution, callable sub-flows, processed data inspection, and step execution logging. Flow tasks can also be chained so that the output of one task execution provides input to the next iteration of that task.
Monitor your tasks with power and simplicity
Flow Server includes a monitoring console that tracks all important information about the execution of your tasks. You can easily filter log data by task, status , and date range. You can also view task inputs and outputs, and drill directly into the underlying flow to troubleshoot problems.
To drive cloud-based analytics (anomaly detection, trend predictions, etc.), organizations must usually transmit high velocity sensor data from the OT infrastructure. When accessed by dashboards and other user-facing apps, the sheer volume of timeseries data can significantly degrade application performance. Edge2Web Flow Server is used extensively to derive aggregated timeseries arrays and enrich that data with other summary metrics to support high performing interactive user applications (often built using Edge2Web Director).
Below are examples of applications being built and deployed by Edge2Web Flow Server users today.
In many industrial environments, assets are commissioned and decommissioned constantly. And most deployed equipment is subject to downtime and maintenance windows. Backbone field protocols like OPC UA, ModBus and REST, along with wireless, RS242/485 and other network interfaces are now being used to deliver asset signature data to edge gateways. Using platform services like Siemens’ MindConnect IoT Extension, Edge2Web Flow Server tasks pole edge gateways to acquire new asset metadata, then automatically onboard assets into the MindSphere Assets inventory. Flow Server tasks also monitor equipment health, generate status events, and notify support teams as appropriate.
Many industrial companies have a standing goal to improve the flow of information between their IT and OT systems. A common example is automatically notifying the finished goods inventory forecast when a critical system is taken offline unexpectedly. Edge2Web Flow Server is an excellent choice for building server-side applications that automate and improve the flow of information across key systems. Flow Server uses Edge2Web’s connectivity tier to communicate securely between your IIoT cloud platform and your enterprise applications and datastores.
Most industrial companies do not have a live support staff that monitors assets and operations 24x7 and, thus, they need applications to do the monitoring for them. For example, consider an application that feeds recent sensor data into an anomaly detection service, creates events when behavior is suspect, and notifies plant engineers via email, providing them a link to a dashboard that shows the behavior visually. Edge2Web Flow Server is among the best available solutions for building server-side applications that monitor assets and operations, generate events when conditions occur, and notify support teams as appropriate.
Asset and
process data
aggregation
Asset discovery, onboarding,
and tracking
Eventing and
human
notification
Enterprise
system
integration
Flow Server Use Cases
Flow Server Data Sheet
Flow Server leverages Edge2Web's platform connectivity tier, giving your applications secure access to all of the rich services on your IIoT platform, including assets, timeseries, analytics, events, files, notifications, and much more. And whenever those services provide bi-directional access, your apps can perform both read and write operations on the platform.
Good software development practices promote modularity and reuse. Flow Server supports these structured patterns using sub-flows – callable flows that can receive input and return output upon completion. Flow Server and Director also include a library of utility sub-flows, developed by Edge2Web, that abstract IIoT platform details (e.g., return last value in a timeseries) and improve application performance.
Most server-side applications execute repetitively on a defined schedule. It is sometimes necessary to pass state information across sequential executions of a task. Flow Server handles this requirement easily, allowing administrators to specify that the output of a completed task serve as input to the next iteration of that task.
Although many flow-based applications are comprised of steps executed in sequence, performance gains can often be achieved when steps execute in parallel. For example, acknowledgement of an event and user notification of that event can usually be executed concurrently. Flow Server provides a parallel step type for applications that can benefit from concurrent execution.
Secure platform connectivity
Callable sub-flows
Chained task execution
Parallel flow path execution
