Real-Time Innovations (RTI) is the Industrial Internet of Things (IIoT) connectivity company and the largest vendor of products based on the Object Management Group (OMG) Data Distribution Service (DDS) standard. The RTI Connext databus is a software framework that shares information in real time, making applications work together as one, integrated system. It connects across field, fog and cloud. Its reliability, security, performance and scalability are proven in the most demanding industrial systems. RTI is active in 15 industry consortia, ranging from narrow industry verticals, such as the SFIP and OPAF, to extremely broad horizontal efforts, such as OMG and OpenFog. RTI is also a leader in the Industrial Internet Consortium (IIC), the world’s largest IoT consortium, serving on the Steering Committee, leading technology testbeds and authoring industry guidance documents. RTI is privately held and headquartered in Sunnyvale, California with a worldwide presence.
Below is our interview with David Barnett, the Vice President of Products and Markets at RTI:
Q: RTI recently presented its “IoT Panel: Exploring the Industrial IoT – What Makes It Different?” webinar; could you tell us something more?
A: RTI hosted this webinar in partnership with Flexera Software, PTC and Red Hat. These days, almost anything involving a device connected to a mobile or cloud application is being called an IoT application. Examples such as smart home and retail applications leverage a combination of sensors, gateways and cloud applications to implement measurement and analysis applications. However, there is a distinct segment of the IoT involving industrial systems for medical, transportation, energy and others, where reliability, scalability and security are critical.
This webinar answered some of the crucial questions that IoT solutions providers must ask, such as: What are the distinguishing characteristics of the Industrial IoT? What are important considerations for the Industrial IoT that may not be as important for other IoT applications? The panel of experts who participated in the webinar discussed distinguishing characteristics, important elements and unique implementation and deployment strategies for the Industrial IoT. RTI’s technology is deployed and designed into more than 1,000 Industrial IoT systems across the energy, healthcare, transportation and aerospace and defense markets.
Recommended: Trustlook Delivers AI Based Cybersecurity Solutions For Advanced Ransomware And Malware Detection And Prevention
Q: Can you give us more insights into your software?
A: RTI Connext DDS is the world’s leading implementation of the DDS standard. It is the first connectivity framework designed for the demanding requirements of the Industrial Internet of Things (IIoT). It delivers the low-latency and real-time QoS needed to monitor and control physical-world processes and provides the non-stop availability and security essential for mission-critical systems. RTI complies with the DDS standard to foster interoperability and an open architecture, slashing lifecycle costs.
Connext DDS Professional is RTI’s flagship product designed to address the performance, scale and resilience requirements of the IIoT. Its architecture is completely decentralized. Applications automatically discover each other and communicate peer-to-peer. Unlike traditional IT-centric messaging and integration solutions, the Connext databus does not require any centralized message brokers, services or servers. This makes it easy to embed and deploy while eliminating bottlenecks and single points of failure. Connext DDS Professional includes a rich set of connectivity capabilities optimized for IIoT systems, such as:
• Messaging libraries simplify distributed application development with high-level APIs for publish-subscribe, request-reply and point-to-point queues.
• An adapter framework with customizable examples eases integration of unmodified existing applications and devices.
• Powerful tools accelerate system integration, testing and debugging.
Connext DDS Secure provides the world’s first standards-compliant, off-the-shelf messaging platform that delivers the security, performance and safety required for deployment of the Industrial Internet of Things. It complies with the OMG’s new DDS Security specification. Connext DDS Secure introduces a robust set of security capabilities to the Connext DDS Professional package including authentication, encryption, access control and logging. Performance is also optimized by fine-grain control over the level of security applied to each data flow, such as whether encryption or just message authentication is required.
Connext DDS Cert is a safety-certifiable communications infrastructure with an available DO-178C Level A Certification Package. Its run-time libraries provide developers with high-level publish/subscribe communication APIs that simplify application logic while eliminating the need for custom networking code. This can save tens of thousands of lines of application software and the need to develop its accompanying certification artifacts, avoiding years of effort and millions of dollars in cost.
RTI Connext DDS Micro provides a small-footprint modular messaging solution for resource-limited devices that have minimal memory, Flash, CPU power or no operating system. Connext DDS Micro simultaneously satisfies demanding real-time performance requirements along with stringent resource constraints. By abstracting out low-level networking and communication details and providing a flexible integration framework, Connext DDS Micro minimizes the amount of device- or application-specific code that has to be created and reduces development costs.
Recommended: PathPartner – Distinguished Technology Enabler For Intelligent Systems
Q: What makes RTI a good choice?
A: RTI’s technology is deployed and designed into more than 1,000 unique designs— from autonomous vehicles to next-generation energy systems to connected hospitals. RTI Connext DDS simplifies application and integration logic with an innovative, powerful data-centric connectivity paradigm. Developers do not have to deal with low-level messaging or networking interfaces. Connext DDS handles the details of data distribution and management, including serialization and lifecycle management. RTI has a wide range of customers, spanning the breadth of the Industrial Internet of Things, including medical, energy, mining, air traffic control, trading, automotive, unmanned systems, industrial SCADA, naval systems, air and missile defense, ground stations and science.
The RTI Connext Databus provides the fundamental infrastructure for the real-time integration of next generation clinical systems and devices. Getting critical data to the point of care allows medical professionals to control medical devices and instrumentation; integrate internal monitoring systems; deliver real-time analysis and correlation of patient data between labs, hospitals, physicians, administrative offices and record management facilities; and reduce errors in managing and treating patients. As a result of real-time connectivity, patients can see reduced healthcare costs, fewer treatment errors and increased medical safety.
Wind power solutions are deployed in a wide range of environments where network services vary—from LAN (local area network) to broadband to satellite communications. RTI supports a variety of underlying network transports to ensure that wind turbines can intelligently integrate with multiple networks and IT infrastructure to achieve the highest possible performance, control and business systems integration. In such environments, systems of systems continue to perform reliably as they continue to scale, generating more wind power for the grid. RTI sets the standard for peer-to-peer communication performance and resilience
Transportation applications play an important role in keeping highways and other transportation lines running safely and efficiently. These applications need a high-reliability communication infrastructure that supports automatic failover, network configuration changes and tunable Quality of Service (QoS). RTI technology is well-suited to the integration of large-scale transportation systems because it provides source-code portability, multi-vendor interoperability and extensive control over real-time QoS.
RTI’s software enables the development of high-performance process automation systems—distributed control systems and Supervisory Control and Data Acquisition (SCADA) applications. The software dramatically improves system throughput, latency, scalability, reliability and security. At the same time, RTI’s open architecture and loosely-coupled interfaces slash the cost of software development, integration, upgrades and maintenance.
Q: What are your plans for next six months?
A: RTI will continue to focus on its expansion in the global IIoT market as the leading connectivity company. The company plans to continue to expand within its existing customer projects, such as such as those at GE Healthcare, Audi, Siemens Wind Power and Raytheon. RTI is also continuing to onboard new projects every month, adding more than 140 in the last year, reaching 1,000 design wins as of Q4 2016. In the last year, RTI saw significant growth across the IIoT, achieving 42% annual growth in 2016 and another 48% in Q1 of 2017, doubling in just over two years. RTI delivered especially strong traction in the transportation, energy and medical markets, and plans to continue focusing on development in these key verticals.
RTI has also expanded internationally, opening a development center in Granada, Spain, where over the past six years they have grown from a team of four to a team of 30. The company has also grown within the EMEA market and has started to expand into the APAC region as well.