Available as a beta release, its unveiling follows successful completion of a pilot phase, the company reports. This open IT ecosystem is based on the SAP HANA cloud platform, an open platform that customers and developers can use to develop, extend, and operate applications in the cloud.
Supporting Industry 4.0 (the industrial internet of things or smart factories), MindSphere has been designed as an “open ecosystem” that industrial companies can use as the basis for their own digital services, such as preventive maintenance, energy data management or resource optimisation.
OEMs and application developers can access the platform via open interfaces and use it for their own services and analyses – for instance, for the online monitoring of globally distributed machine tools, industrial robots, or industrial equipment such as compressors and pumps. This opens up new business models for such technology suppliers, says Siemens.
MindSphere also offers the basis for data-based services from Siemens, such as, again, machine tool preventive maintenance (machine tool analytics) or integrated drive systems monitoring (drive train analytics).
For connecting plant and machinery to MindSphere irrespective of manufacturer, Siemens offers a connector box, MindConnect Nano. Further options for connecting to the MindSphere, including using a software development kit, a software agent or via integration into Siemens’ Simatic products, are set to be made available in future, the company adds.
Customers are free to choose where to store data - a public or a private cloud, or an on-site cloud solution for those customers who prefer to maintain their own cloud infrastructure.
