2022: Year in Review
Wow. 2022 feels like it absolutely flew by. We want to start this review with a big thank you to all our OnPing Users for helping grow the platform for another year. It is our hope that you all experience success in the years to come, as well.
With this year coming to a close, we want to briefly review the updates that have occurred on the platform over the past 12 months – then touch on what 2023 has in store. Our ‘Year in Review’ in intended to provide a glimpse at the story arc for the OnPing platform. It’s important for a project to have a vision. This is a great opportunity to share what exactly the vision for OnPing is and how we intend to get there.
Integrating the Edge and Cloud in OnPing
Towards the end of last year (cheating a little bit on the ‘2022 in Review’ them), we began to roll out the Lumberjack Application System for OnPing Users. LAS was a huge step forward in bringing together the Edge and Cloud environments of OnPing. Much of this year’s development focus has been dediciated to realizing this integration. Simply put, OnPing is a unique system offering the benefits of both Cloud and Edge architecture. LAS helped remove some of the ‘visibility gates’ between what was happening in onsite Lumberjacks and the OnPing cloud. Now, Users can see what applications are available for a given Lumberjack, as well as any potential updates, directly from the LAS portal in OnPing! Furthermore, Lumberjacks can be managed directly through OnPing without requiring a developer to sit down and make adjusts for an organizations. Updates are as simple as a single click.
The extension of OnPing across the Edge/Cloud space is unique in the automation market. Other services require add-ons and modules to approximate this idea, but OnPing offers the integration as a fundamental aspect of the platform. We will continue to strive for a seamless transition from Edge to Cloud as we move forward and are happy to see the success our Users have found using OnPing tools like LAS. 2022 focused much on this idea though, so it seems fitting to address it here. With that said, 2023 is starting off with a BANG – and a continuation of this concept: Inferno.
Welcome, Inferno
Inferno is the new OnPing scripting language. The OnPing product management team put together a couple of featured pieces regarding the use and impact of Inferno, so check those out to better understand what has changed in scripting. We will simply say here that Inferno represents a reduction in difficulty of OnPing scripting, along side a massive increase in the power of scripts. It is a complete overhaul of the Scripting and Business Intelligence components of the OnPing platform!
Looking Forward
The past 2 years have set up the groundwork for OnPing to be the source of truth in automated systems regardless of technical infrastructure. LAS has removed much of the unseen distance between cloud technologies and the realities of floor level operation. Inferno will make development in OnPing much smoother, as well as increase the power available in the OnPing environment.
We will continue to explore what it means to have an integrated Edge/Cloud data ecosystem where information flows freely where it is needed. But we know there is more work to be done. Event-based relational data is an important tool for data-driven improvement. We have some of the basic building blocks of a data platform built already. Our vision, though, is to provide a fully capable machine learning and data science system within the OnPing platform. If the future continues to trend towards data-driven decision making and operations, we want to be at the forefront of this push in the industrial automation space.
Feature Improvements and Additions
As already stated, the entire Scripting environmnet has received an overhaul, and LAS has been at the forefront of our development goasls. However, many other features have received upgrades over the year.
- Expanded Communications
- More than any single feature, our push to expand the ‘Edge’ of operations is apparent in the new integrations OnPing has developed this year. If the idea is an automation platform, then we need to work products external to OnPing as well as the tools built internally. 2022 saw a host of new integrations:
- Ignition deployment systems
- TankLogix and SitePro deployments
- Database deployment
- OSI Integrations
- Elynx connectivity
- More than any single feature, our push to expand the ‘Edge’ of operations is apparent in the new integrations OnPing has developed this year. If the idea is an automation platform, then we need to work products external to OnPing as well as the tools built internally. 2022 saw a host of new integrations:
- Inferno:
- More a transformation of the entire OnPing scripting ecosysem than a single feature addition, we expect Inferno to significantly impact how OnPing is used. Scripting, Time Travel, and Virtual Alarms will all see immediate performance improvement from the newly released Inferno.
- LAS
- This service has received steady updates throughout 2023 and will continue to see advancements moving forward. Our goal for LAS is to provide the smoothest exchange of information between on-prem systems and Cloud interface. As the linchpin for our Edge/Cloud integration strategy, LAS will continue in high priority status for OnPing development. Some changes from 2022 include:
- Increased visibility into connectivity status
- Lumberjacks are easier to search for in OnPing
- Better identification of Internet Source for a Lumberjack devices
- This service has received steady updates throughout 2023 and will continue to see advancements moving forward. Our goal for LAS is to provide the smoothest exchange of information between on-prem systems and Cloud interface. As the linchpin for our Edge/Cloud integration strategy, LAS will continue in high priority status for OnPing development. Some changes from 2022 include:
- CFX Visualization
- We added a CFX visualization tool, and Users can now peruse CFX files while in OnPing.
- Downhole Card
- This application was realesed in late 2021, but underwent significant improvement over the course of 2022. It is much more User friendly and reliable.
- HMI Rendering
- This was announced in the previous newsletter, but HMI rendering has been drastically improved. Zooming in and out of the HMI is much more fluid, and manipulation of the HMI screen is generally less prone to generating visual bugs. OnPing simply looks better on your screen now.
- User-centric Improvements
- A ‘year-in-review’ seems like a perfect time to say many of our behind the scenes development projects have aimed to make life easier and simplify User-centric processes
- Multifactor Authentication in OnPing
- Multi-Auth (2FA) is an important addition to our selection Access Management tools. Organizations can rely on OnPing to provide the resources necessary for a modern digital enterprise.
- Tailscale
- Our Tailscale integration has opened OnPing up to session-based use cases. Proxy sessions have had some really cool interactions with LAS and our Lumberjack system!
- LAS Proxy
- Multifactor Authentication in OnPing
- A ‘year-in-review’ seems like a perfect time to say many of our behind the scenes development projects have aimed to make life easier and simplify User-centric processes
Thank You All, For a Wonderful 2022
We really can’t say thank you enough for helping to make 2022 a great year in OnPing. Let us know what you think about the direction we’re headed with Inferno and LAS. Your feedback is what enables us to create a place that feels right for automation. We’ll see you in 2023!
