A modular software tool-set for back-end development and operations, enabling accelerated loT solution delivery at scale
Waylay is an intelligent data processing platform, enabling lloT solution providers to build applications for data-intensive industries such as lndustrial Automation, Machinery & OEMs, HVAC & Appliances and Energy & Buildings.
The platform is composed of modular software tools that help customers put lloT data to better commercial use, at scale. These tools embed the platform’s main capabilities, most of which are structured around back-end development and operations: real-time loT data processing, advanced loT data workflow automation, loT to lT integration, time series analytics, ML ops and loT dashboarding. Apart from our B2B dashboarding application (that is anyway white labeled under our customers’ brand), Waylay technology is invisible to end-users. lt often lies deep inside lloT solutions, acting as their foundational middleware for data processing and orchestration.
The modularity of the platform means higher flexibility in the way customers can benefit from it. Modular components can be licensed on their own, which is the preferred choice for high-tech solution providers who build with best-of-breed components and who want to accelerate time to market. The full-option platform on the other hand serves as a one-stop-shop for customers with extensive vertical domain expertise but little internal loT know-how, who want to see better business returns on their loT investments. Both standalone components and the full-option platform are available to deploy either in the customer’s environment (own cloud or on-site) or as a hassle-free PaaS managed by Waylay.
Our customers ultimately use the Waylay platform to achieve two types of business goals: improve operational efficiency (example use-cases: alarm management, data quality validation, remote diagnostics, energy efficiency) or bring new data-enabled digital services to marǿet (example use cases: condition monitoring, predictive maintenance, service optimization, machine-as-a-service models).
We build the tools that help you truly succeed with IoT data
The Waylay platform provides a complete tool-set to help you make better use of loT asset and process data. This paper will show you a high-level view over the functionality of these tools and how they can be used to extract more business value from raw machine data.
01. Data ingestion
loT data & event acquisition
Access to device data is a prerequisite to any lloT solution. The Waylay ingestion layer takes care of functions like authentication and authorization, data collection & scheduling and protocol normalization.
Our data acquisition framework is essential for value creation as it enables combination of data between vertical silos. The Waylay platform has four main data ingestion paths available, covering the entire loT communication landscape.
1/ One of the most common ways of getting device data into Waylay is via the loT hub of a major cloud hosting provider. Waylay has off-the-shelf connectors to Azure loT Hub, AWS loT Core and Google Cloud loT.
2/ Many loT applications are built on LPWAN networks and Waylay provides native connectors to all major ones such as LoRaWAN, NB-loT or Sigfox.
3/ For use cases that require direct communication to the device or gateway we provide an MQTT broker that makes that direct connection possible.
ln pure industrial applications, communication to SCADA systems via OPC-UA is common, and this is also readily available in Waylay.
4/ Many customers use proprietary loT cloud
platforms that are easy to connect to Waylay via our configurable APl channel integrations.
02. Automation engine
Real-time data processing and data workflow orchestration
Waylay’s automation capabilities make up the core of the platform, around which all other components are built and the platform is extended. The automation module is also the only mandatory module when licensing Waylay, while all others offer optional added functionality.
A proprietary bayesian inference rules engine provides advanced rule logic modeling and execution capabilities that are unparalleled in the loT domain, supporting even the most complex logic without any extra coding needed. The rules engine makes use of software-defined sensors and actuators to compose rules with any kind of data – from real-time streaming machine data, to data lying in lT systems or internet-fetched data.
Data processing takes place in the platform’s automation core, where raw machine data is transformed into business insights in real time. Building, maintaining and extending loT business rule logic in Waylay is very easy for any type of enterprise user – from the engineer to the business analyst. There are rule-building interfaces for non-developer users (drag-and-drop canvas) as well as for developer users (JSON interface).
Powerful lifecycle management tools are available for debugging, bulk operations, diagnostics and alerting. Advanced testing capabilities are offered in Labs – a feature enabling you to run offline log data through rules, to validate and refine your business logic.
The automation core also includes a native alarms service with advanced alarm management capabilities: alarm escalation, hierarchical alarm propagation and distributed alarm processing.
03. Data analytics
Storage, time series analytics, ML integration & data science ops
Waylay’s data analytics capabilities support stream, time series and ML analytics, enabling a wide range of use cases to extract actionable insights from loT data. Unique to Waylay are the added operational deployment capabilities through the connection to our automation core, that enable you to operationalize insights and see immediate business impact from models.
STORAGE & ETL
Resource types and resource time series data are stored in the Waylay metadata and time series databases. The resource is a flexible concept within Waylay, corresponding to both an individual “device” as well as to a “system of devices”, such as a “building” or any other abstract object for which Waylay stores data.
An optional ETL service is offered on top of our storage module, that customers are using to export aggregated data to be used in
third-party systems such as Bl systems or other enterprise analytics tools.
TSA (TIME SERIES ANALYTICS)
The Waylay TSA (Time Series Analytics) module provides tools to perform data exploration, anomaly detection, prediction and other types of offline analysis on the data stored in the Waylay time series database. The TSA module is made up of two main components:
1/ the development environment where users (data scientists and business analysts) are building the analytical models on top of best-in-class statistical algorithms;
2/ the models are saved as time series sensors that are ready to be deployed within the Waylay automation core.
BYOML (BRING YOUR OWN MACHINE LEARNING)
Waylay offers a framework to easily upload externally built analytical models and to interface with popular machine learning tools.
This module enables uploading and (optionally) hosting a trained Al/ML model in Waylay and using it as an input sensor within the Waylay automation core, inside the business logic.
04. Data access & visualisation
B2B dashboarding app and APls to all core platform functionality
THE WAYLAY DASHBOARD
Waylay is a deep-tech product company that builds best-of-breed middleware technology for lloT solution providers, which is why Waylay underlying tech is not typically visible to end users. End-user applications are usually built on top of Waylay technology, leveraging Waylay’s APls.
Our dashboarding application is the exception to this rule. We have built the application on top of the automation core to exclusively respond to our enterprise customers’ need to accelerate their time to market and to rapidly deliver best-in-class vertical-specific and KPl-focused user experiences to their own customers.
The Waylay Dashboard enables customers of the Waylay automation core platform to provision end-user environments for multiple end customers, to pre-template them with
pre-processed sensor data, to white label them with their and their customers’ brand, control user identity levels and have a central overview of all customers.
End users benefit from an intuitive and wizard-backed dashboard to create graphs, alarms, notification tasks and actuations.
INTELLIGENT APIs
REST/JSON Application Programming lnterfaces (APl) expose all capabilities of the Waylay platform to any external application. lt includes APls to get access to resource data and metadata, the automation and analytics modules. Waylay APls enable developers to create use-case specific applications on top of Waylay technology and liberates them to focus on building optimal user interfaces and user experiences.
Conclusion
At Waylay, we offer lloT solution providers an application development platform with built-in integration to any data source for easy data ingestion and a full set of software tools for automation, analytics and asset and process monitoring, that accelerate loT solution development. Moreover, we provide a flexible visualisation dashboard that can be white labeled and templated to fit end-customers’ specific requirements.
Waylay technology is used across different markets and industries to support a wide range of use cases. Typical cases include condition monitoring and condition-based predictive maintenance, remote asset diagnostics and improved remote field support, data quality validation, alarm management and improved alarm accuracy, improved energy use forecasting and benchmarking, new data-enabled digital services, service optimisations and enablement of machine-as-a-service business models, among many others.
