Introduction
In the industrial sector, large amounts of data are usually produced by devices or machines.
These are usually collected by the PLC, which will carry out one application or another, depending on the value of the data obtained.
In this blog post, we will see which are the best databases to store these values.
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Suitable database for Industrial Internet of Things
The Industrial Internet of things (IIoT) describes physical objects that are embedded with sensors, processing ability, software, and other technologies, and that connect and exchange data with other devices and systems over the Internet or other communications networks.
The devices acquire and analyze data from connected equipment, locations, and people. Combined with operational technology monitoring devices, IIoT helps regulate and monitor industrial systems. Also, the same implementation can be carried out for automated record updates of asset placement in industrial storage units. And there is where we come into play!
Let's see the best databases suited for the Industrial Internet of Things:
BEST 5 OPEN SOURCE IIOT DATABASES
InfluxDB
INFLUXDB
InfluxDB is an open-source time-series database (TSDB), written in Go and optimized for fast, high-availability storage and retrieval of time series data in fields such as operations monitoring, application metrics, Internet of Things sensor data, and real-time analytics.
It is a time series platform that empowers developers to build Industrial Internet of Things, analytics and monitoring software.
It is purpose-built to handle the massive volumes and countless sources of time-stamped data produced by sensors, applications and infrastructure.Â
InfluxDB stores data in shard groups. Shard groups are organized by retention policy (RP) and store data with timestamps that fall within a specific time interval called the shard duration.
Some of the main features are the following:
- Free version without the need to download, install or have its own server infrastructure
- Homogeneous API. The homogeneous InfluxDB-v2 API allows access to all InfluxDB components such as data collection, query, storage, and visualization.Â
- Compatibility with Flux. Flux is a script language and databases queries for temporary series that allow to increase the productivity.
- It has a Graphical interface for a better data visualization.
GOOGLE FIREBASE
Google's Firebase is a cloud platform for application development. It is available for different platforms (iOS, Android and web), which is faster to work in development. Its essential function is to simplify the creation of both web and mobile applications and their development, ensuring that the work is faster, but without sacrificing the required quality.
One of the most prominent and essential tools in Firebase is real-time databases. These are hosted in the cloud, are No-SQL, and store the data as JSON. They allow to host and have the data and information of the application in real time, keeping them updated even if the user does not take any action. For this reason, it is a very useful application in Industrial Internet of Things.
Some of the main features are:
- It is a real-time database, which allows us to enter and obtain data in real-time.
- Authentication through email or social networks.
- Cloud storage in Google Cloud.
- Contains hosting, allowing to publish our website.
- Remote configuration: Allowing to modify certain data of our application without having to update it.
- Test lab: Virtual lab in which the app can be tested, without the users having to do it directly.
- Bug report: Tool that allows to report application errors.
MONGODB
MongoDB (humongous, "huge") is an open source, document-oriented NoSQL database system.
Instead of saving the data in tables, as it is done in relational databases, MongoDB saves BSON data structures (a specification similar to JSON) with a dynamic schema, making the integration of the data in certain applications easier and faster.
MongoDB is a database suitable for use in production and with multiple functionalities.
This database is widely used in industry, for several reasons:
- MongoDB supports field searching, range queries, and regular expressions.
- Any field in a MongoDB document can be indexed, just like it is possible to do secondary indexes.
- MongoDB can scale horizontally. MongoDB has the ability to run on multiple servers, load balancing and / or replicating data in order to keep the system running in the event of a hardware failure.
- MongoDB can be used as a file system, taking advantage of MongoDB's capacity for load balancing and data replication across multiple servers.
- MongoDB provides an aggregation framework that allows you to perform operations similar to SQL "GROUP BY".
- MongoDB has the ability to perform queries using JavaScript, causing them to be sent directly to the database to be executed.
CRATEDB
CrateDB is a distributed SQL database management system that integrates a fully searchable document-oriented data store. It is open-source, written in Java, based on a shared-nothing architecture, and designed for high scalability.
It makes it simple to ingest and analyze massive amounts of data. Companies can extract the full value of the data – whether for new innovative digital solutions or operational improvements across the business functions.
It has the following features that makes it suitable for Industrial Internet of Things Applications
- Variety: Readily handle structured and unstructured data, regardless of data shape
- Real-time: Run ad hoc queries in real-time - no waiting necessary
- Run on-premise or in the cloud. In any cloud.
- Aggregation: Condense and distill to get what you need and when you need it
- Simple scalability: Unique architecture that’s simple to scale and keeps running 24/7 with no bottlenecks
- SQL & NoSQL:Â Index high data volumes with a distributed SQL DBMS built atop NoSQL storage.
SQLITE
SQLite is a C-language library that implements a small, fast, self-contained, high-reliability, full-featured, SQL database engine. SQLite is the most used database engine in the world. SQLite is built into all mobile phones and most computers and comes bundled inside countless other applications that people use every day.
SQLite database files are commonly used as containers to transfer rich content between systems and as a long-term archival format for data.
SQLite source code is in the public-domain and is free to everyone to use for any purpose.
- SQLite is open-source and totally free.
- SQLite does not require a different server process or system to operate.
- It is very flexible. SQLite provides an efficient way to store data and it facilitated you to work on multiple databases on the same time.
- SQLite provides API for a large range of programming languages, like Visual Basic, PHP, Java, Python, etc.
Choose your best DB!
Now, it is your time! Test them all and explore the possibilities of each of them, by storing data into your Raspberry PLC. And choose the one that fits you well for creating an application with IIoT!
Best 5 Open Source IIoT Databases