Connect, Control and Monitor

In the IT industry remote connectivity is accepted as a norm. Administrators exploit this feature extensively when supporting their users, saving their time and effort. This reduces the cost, gives more time for IT team to work on long term projects. Connecting remotely would give even greater benefits to automation industry as, unlike IT admins, automation engineers are often based far from the location where equipment is used. Remote connectivity becomes even more important if equipment is sent to another country where travel and accommodation cost gets considerably higher. But can the industrial equipment be remotely connected to, monitored and programmed the same way? The answer is… well, not really. Often devices are simple, low cost and not intelligent enough, and even if they do implement some sort of remote connectivity, there is no common communication standard between them.
eWON’s team have found a very elegant yet powerful solution for industrial remote connectivity. Its a device called eWON Industrial Router. This device makes any machine, or even multiple machines, reachable from anywhere in the world using secure encrypted VPN connection. eWON provides remote access to machines like they would be next to you on your local network. It is also capable of monitoring memory and IO tags of a PLC and sends email if they get out of control.

So how does it work? Well, there are three simple parts in this connection. The first part (and the only part that cost money, for most applications anyway) is an eWON device it self. It sits on the machine’s network as a gateway to outside world. Depending on the model it connects to internet over company’s Ethernet , ADLS line or 3G network.
  
It is worth noting that no one can connect to the eWON, or to your machine in that matter, from outside world. eWON it self makes an outgoing connection in secure a way. That’s where the second part of remote connection comes in – Talk2M service.
Talk2M is a 24/7 service enabling users (engineers) to connect to their machines over encrypted VPN connection. It works simple but ingenious way – user creates an account on Talk2M service and configures required/owned eWON devices to connect to that account.

An eWON is able to connect to a single account that is logically separated from all other accounts. This way only users that have permission to access that particular account are able connect to their machines without compromising security on either side.
So far I’ve covered just two parts of remote access. The third part is an essential but free software called eCatcher. This software is required for every computer that needs to access Talk2M service and connect remotely to an eWON device. It connects to Talk2M service by providing an account name, user name and password and lists all the eWONs that belong to that particular account. Then, if a device is online, user can make an encrypted VPN connection to it. I will not go into details of what is happening behind the scenes, but it virtually creates a link between an eWON (with machines behind it) and user’s computer so that they both would be like on the same network. Apart from internet speed, there is no real difference of how machines are monitored and programmed, locally or remotely.
If you are interested in finding out more about this solution please follow this blog by subscribing here. Or, alternatively, you can contact eWON’s distributor for UK – MAC Solutions UK LTD.