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markteichmann
Product and Topic Expert
Product and Topic Expert

Automated processes based on machine to machine communication are a quite new technology. Nonetheless I am sure that it will be used all over the place soon. There are countless scenarios that could be automated by using connected sensors. Here I would like to show you an example of a complete process chain starting from a sensor and ending at a service technician who gets a service notification automatically in case of a problem.

This blog post is an excerpt of my talk at the SAP Inside Track Munich 2014.

Overview

In my demo setup the sensor data is sent automatically into the Q-loud Sensor Cloud which is Cloud solution for the Internet of Things, operated by my employer, QSC AG. Then an SAPUI5 application running on SAP HANA Cloud retrieves the data via a REST API. When some sensor data exceeds a certain threshold a service notification is created in an On Premise SAP ERP system. The ERP is connected to the SAP HANA Cloud through the Cloud Connector that runs inside the local network of the ERP. 

After the Service Notification is created a Service Technician retrieves it on his mobile device running an application based on the Neptune PM template.

Process steps

The Secure Cloud Sensor collects data like temperature, luminosity, humidity, movement and sends them via encrypted RF transmission to the Cospace Developer Box. The Cospace Box is connected to the internet and periodically sends the data of all connected Sensors into the Q-loud.


For the consumption of the data I created a lightweight HTML5 application in the SAP HANA Cloud Trial environment using the SAP Web IDE.

The HTML5 application retrieves the sensor data from Q-loud periodically through a polling mechanism. An HTTP GET command remains open until new data arrives. The retrieved data is bound to a SAPUI5 JSON model in the HTML5 application.


In my SAP HANA Cloud account I created a destination to our local On Premise ERP system through the Cloud Connector. There I implemented a simple REST call to create service notifications as described in this blog from Uwe Fetzer.


The service notification from the SAP ERP is consumed by the mobile application from Neptune as you can see in the following screenshot:

Conclusion

The scenario shown is just an example for how you could set up an automated process initiated by sensors. Another possible scenario would be to consume the sensor data directly from your ERP system. Some time ago I blogged about a direct connection from SAP to Q-loud (which was called Cospace back then) and used.... At least all the technology needed for integrated scenarios like this lies at your finger tips today and is ready to be used.



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