ThingWorx Guided Tour

The ThingWorx (TWX) Guided Tour is simulation tutorial which provides you with the experience of using a ThingWorx application so you can understand how the Internet of Things (IoT) changes business models and how ThingWorx can be used to change value creation and value capture for businesses.

During the experience, you will learn how a rental car company can leverage a purpose-built Internet of Things application to solve their real business challenges for managing, maintaining and servicing their fleet of rental cars. You will learn how this application can benefit the end user, the driver, through improved rewards opportunities and improved customer support from the rental agency. Objectives

After successfully completing this course, you will be able to: . Distinguish between a sellable end user application and an enablement platform that allows a company to build a IoT application that solves real business challenges . Understand and see a high quality end user application that can be developed with the TWX platform . Understand how data acquisition can be leveraged and used by a Rental Company for fleet management . Understand the value of connecting to heterogeneous devices and applications such as Google Maps, Starbucks Rewards and the like. . Understand the potential for new business models that are being created in for Business to Consumer (B2C) and Business to Business (B2B).

The course should take 60 minutes to complete. The course is broken into four modules. Each module consists of a lecture, demonstration/exercise and assessment. For each module, you should start with the lecture, complete the exercise, and test your knowledge by taking the assessment. Each component can be viewed from this instruction manual document (PDF or Word), slides (PDF or PowerPoint) or as a MP4 video.

You should start each module lesson by reviewing the lecture. After the lecture, watch the demonstration video and then complete the complementary exercise yourself. Once the exercise is complete, test your knowledge by answering all 5 questions for that module. Repeat the process for module 1-4.

There is a MP4 video with audio that describes the introduction and objectives for the Guided Tour. It is located at: Guided_Tour_ThingWorx_App\Introduction\Introduction

I. Overview (10-15 minutes)

a. Lecture – Establishes the situation, the business problems and challenges. Discuss the application and how it differs from the platform. Discuss some of the elements that need to come together to create an application such as mashups, widgets, built on modern technology, ubiquitous device connectivity, core connected product functionality (Asset Management, Remote Diagnostics, Software Updates, Usage Reporting)

b. Demonstration – Setup and GUI Overview; c. Exercise – 4 Exercises; d. Assessment – 5 Questions (3 concept, 2 exercise)

II. Business IoT Value (10-15 minutes)

a. Lecture –Explore other features and how those features bring value to Rental car manufacturer such as landmark pinpoints, GPS, ubiquitous device connectivity, Asset Management, vehicle filters, properties, aggregation of data, real time mapping, selection & hyperlinking of vehicle data;

b. Demonstration – GPS Mapping of Vehicles and Customer Filtering; c. Exercise – 4 Exercises; d. Assessment – 5 Questions (3 concept, 2 exercise)

III. Consumer IoT Value (10-15 minutes)

a. Lecture – Analyzes how the application also helps the end user, in this case the person renting a car. Discuss some of the elements like remote monitoring diagnostics, vehicle performance characteristics, driver activities and events(time, location, driver), searchable data, Big Data, complex event processing, usage reporting;

b. Demonstration – Driver and Vehicle Detail

c. Exercise – 4 Exercises;

d. Assessment – 5 Questions (3 concept, 2 exercise)

IV. Platform as a Service (PaaS) IoT Value (10-15 minutes)

a. Lecture – Discusses the power of ThingWorx as a platform and how it’s relatively easy to build an application, modify the application if business models change or new information becomes available. Discuss some of the elements like THWX Composer, Mashup builder, vehicle performance characteristics, property and filter setting, SQUEAL (Search, Query, Analyze), Big Data, event recording;

b. Demonstration – SQUEAL and Administration

c. Exercise – 3 Exercises;

d. Assessment – 5 Questions (3 concept, 2 exercise)

I. Overview I. Lecture

There is a MP4 video with audio that shows the slides for the lecture. It is located at: Guided_Tour_ThingWorx_App\Module_1\Lecture_Module_1

To remain competitive, companies must accelerate business innovation that differentiates their products in the marketplace, and drives new value creation and capture. This requires a major shift in methods used by product development companies to create and capture value. As cited in the recent Harvard Business Review article “How the Internet of Things Changes Business Models” by Gordon Hui, value creation is all activities that make a product or service so attractive to the customer that they are compelled to purchase. Since the beginning of the Industrial Revolution over two centuries ago, the traditional market approach was simple: identify a customer need and manufacture a well-engineered solution for that need. The competition in this traditional market was based on a feature-by-feature comparison. For the most part, product innovation was incremental, which led to price competition between manufacturers. Often, this lead to product retirement as they became obsolete as new solutions were released into the market.

In today’s market of smart, connected products, products are no longer under the same constraints. There are now many more opportunities for value creation for businesses in every industry. There is now a whole new area of value creation for a product with opportunities for services and upgrades. Software updates can enhance the features and functionality of many products. Products can be managed and monitored and even serviced to respond to customer needs and behavior. Products can also be connected with other products leading to more intelligent, innovative systems for process optimization and better overall customer experiences.

Value capture involves the monetization of customer value. In traditional markets, this

typically meant setting the right price to maximize profits from product sales.

In the connected product world, profits only begin at the initial product sale. Other revenue streams are possible like value-added services, subscriptions, and apps, which can even exceed the initial purchase price. Recurring revenue can actually be more appealing. For instance, think about your current budget and how many services such as your cell phone, home entertainment, etc. that are based on a subscription model and how they continue to expand their product offerings.

Here are some ways to shift your thinking when it comes to both value creation and capture:

Figure 1: IoT Value

( “How the Internet of Things Changes Business Models” by Gordon Hui, July 29, 2014, Harvard Business Review - )

To address this business challenge, the evolution of software platforms as a service (PaaS) has become an attractive approach for the software industry. ThingWorx is a perfect example of PaaS, as it is a platform that allows companies to quickly and efficiently develop applications for their products. Since many of today’s products are connected in some way to the Internet and the growing Internet of Things, applications to manage, understand and enhance their usage are critical for nearly every industry. ThingWorx provides a platform that allows these industries to rapidly develop applications to solve the challenges that are being faced in today’s market. It is a step change from traditional application building software, which requires extensive coding knowledge and experience, as well as long development time to perfect.

Thingworx is built with modern technology, so it’s Social, Mobile, Mashable, and Searchable. The codeless Mashup Builder enables rapid assembly of applications that integrate the data, activities, and events from People, Systems, and the Physical World. The “zero code” approach lets developers, analysts, and business users create HTML5-based user experiences, analytics and dashboards, expanding the number of people that can contribute.

Thingworx allows users to search the people, systems, and machines in their world to find what they want when they want it, using SQUEAL (Search, Query, and Analyze) capabilities.

ThingWorx enables dynamic Internet of Things applications that evolve rapidly as new inputs and insights become available. These “dynamic” applications grow more valuable.

We will investigate a specific business scenario to understand how a high-quality user application can be created and capture value. The rental agency market is extremely competitive and

ACME Rental is looking for ways to, differentiates themselves from the competition, reduce overall cost, and focus their business strategy to become connected in the 21st century. In the connected world in which we live, it is now possible for a rental agency to understand their assets in a real-time basis, provide remote diagnostics from the vehicles to the agency, update embedded software like navigation systems, and capture driver and vehicle usage reports for business intelligence. Also, the modern day consumer is becoming smarter and more agile in their purchasing and ACME Rental needs to find innovative ways to improve reward opportunities and customer service.

Furthermore, you will see how both the vehicles and drivers are tracked and monitored in the ThingWorx application. The rental agency wants to know where all vehicles are at any given time. They want to be aware of technical issues with their vehicles, such as any potential maintenance issues that may arise, as well customer usage of their vehicles, such as how the cars are being driven. The IoT application is composed of several mash-ups. The application mash to gather data from ever-increasing number of data streams and use it to make highly informed decisions. These mashups consist of several widgets on each page, built on modern technology that leverages the internet, your web browser and the cloud. Sensor connected devices from a range of products (vehicles, traffic, vendors, etc.) provide monitoring capabilities so the rental agency has better asset management, remote diagnostics, software updating and usage reporting. Let the journey begin …. II. Demonstration

There is a MP4 video with audio that shows the step-by-step instructions. It is located at: Guided_Tour_ThingWorx_App\Module_1\Demo_Module_1 Setup of the Web-browser for the Guided Tour

The exercises are performed with a web-browser (Google Chrome, Microsoft Internet Explorer, Mozilla Firefox, and Apple Safari). We recommend Google Chrome as the preferred browser. Also, you will need a high speed internet connection.

1. Navigate to https://ec2td3.thingworx.com/Thingworx/Mashups/DemoLaunch

2. Enter the username and password to authenticate. Username: PTCDemo Password: ThingWorx

3. Select the Vehicle Widget to enter the Guided Tour. See Figure 2 below

Figure 2: Select Vehicles Widget

4. Select the HOME Mashup Tab near top of page and review widgets.

5. Select the DETAILS Mashup Tab next to Home Tab and review widgets

6. Select the SQUEAL (Search, Query and Analyze) Mashup Tab next to Details Tab. Notice the Mashup Builder Logic.

7. Select the ADMINISTRATOR Mashup Tab next to Squeal Tab. Note, if you select the powered

by ThingWorx logo in the upper right corner, it will return you to the main demo selection page showing the four demos – Medical, Mining, Vehicles, and Manufacturing widgets. See Figure 3.

Figure 3: Mashups Selections

8. Select a new rental location with drop-down. Notice the address and phone number update in mashup.

9. Select +ADD FILTERS. Scroll through the list of 54 filters that can be applied to the data. 10. Review the Selected Vehicles Details which include the vehicle VIN, rental start and end

date, customer name, address and phone number. 11. Review the widget for the customer driving score (green, blue, yellow, and red). How do

you think this score is calculated?

12. Review the message box for sending a call, email or text (SMS) to the driver. III. Exercises

1) Check the vechicle information in the Details page.

2) Search a vehicle in the Squeal page.

3) Select a new location from the Home page.

4) Check the events in the Administrator page.

IV. Check Your Knowledge

A. Questions:

1. ACME Rental uses this ThingWorx application to(choose all that apply): A. Manage their fleet assets B. Diagnose problems in the field C. Update firmware software in their vehicles D. Acquire usage reports about their competition E. Acquire driver and vehicle usage reports

2. TRUE OR FALSE - Value creation involves the monetization of customer value.

3. TRUE OR FALSE - A widget is made up of several mashups.

4. This ThingWorx application can search, query and analyze detail information including the: A. Driver’s name & Phone # B. VIN # C. GPS Location D. Engine Performance (Speed, RPM, etc.) E. All of the above

5. Value capture for IoT business models includes the following(choose all that apply): A. Solves for existing needs or lifestyle in a reactive manner B. Enables recurring revenue C. Adds personalization and context D. Leverages networks between products E. Encourages partnerships within the ecosystem to make money

B. Answers:

1. A,B,C,E 2. FALSE - Value capture involves the monetization of customer value 3. FALSE – A mashup is made of several widgets, not the other way around 4. E 5. B,C,D,E

II. Business IoT Value I. Lecture

There is a MP4 video with audio that shows the slides for the lecture. It is located at: Guided_Tour_ThingWorx_App\Module_2\Lecture_Module_2

The Internet of Things is a technology that has helped UPS logistics and fleet management. UPS has been managing and monitoring its fleet of trucks with hundreds of sensors to use technology to increase productivity. They have calculated that by saving 1 minute for each driver each day, they can save $14.5 M per year for the company. WOW! For a more in-depth look read: The Future of Work Looks like a UPS Truck Story from NPR.

Figure 4: UPS – leverages IoT for value creation and capture

Similarly, the ThingWorx application creates and captures value for the Rental car company by directly connecting the rental vehicle and the driver’s behavior in a purpose built application. The vehicle itself is loaded with multiple sensor devices that are able to continuously feed large amounts of valuable data back to the rental company.

The entire rental car fleet can be tracked in real-time through vehicle GPS transmitter and each vehicle can be displayed in a Google Map widget. Each vehicle can also be color coded red, yellow, blue or green based on the customer’s driving score. The score is calculated based on positive or negative attributes of the vehicle or the driving behavior. For instance, if the driver is reckless by going through stop lights, hard on the breaks, revving the engine, etc.; the driver receives negative points on his score. However, if the driver is careful with his driving habits and also visits a partner vendor like Starbucks, Exxon, or the like, the driver will receive positive points on his score.

Furthermore, data from the vehicle’s performance can be used to provide remote diagnostics and take actionable steps like preventive maintenance to handle “check engine” light problems, tail light failure, or break replacement. Further information about the driver’s negative behavior can allow the rental agency to communicate with the driver through a simple phone call, SMS text, or email to encourage them to take preventive steps to improve their driving behavior.

New partnerships among vendors like Starbucks, Exxon and ACME Rental can be formed to incentivize drivers to select their shops and also track their purchase decisions through a simple rewards loyalty program. When you have a business partnerships formed like this, all the partners win by increasing their revenues and further locking out the competition. When the vehicle and its surrounding sensor devices are sending real-time data to the cloud and syncing to the application, the end user has a lot of data at their fingertips. However, the user also needs to know what to do with the data to make smart decisions. The application provides metadata (data about data) and also the ability to search, query and analyze the data. For each sensor device that is connected across different network technologies, the application can filter on all of the different parameters that are configured for each vehicle. The rental company can use aggregated searching of any of the properties or information that they are collecting off of these individual vehicles, and its surroundings.

This powerful capability gives the rental company the ability to narrow down specific vehicles and quickly retrieve desired information. Clicking on any particular vehicle on the real-time map brings up all of the specific customer information including rental terms, driving habits and contact information. II. Demonstration

There is a MP4 video with audio that shows the step-by-step instructions. It is located at: Guided_Tour_ThingWorx_App\Module_2\Demo_Module_2

1. Use your middle mouse button (MMB) to scroll so you can zoom in to the car rental location. You can also use the zoom & pan control located on the left of the Google Map widget. Zoom in until you can see the ACME rental buildings and vehicles. See Figure 5.

Figure 5: GPS Mapping

2. In the upper right corner of the map widget, Select the SATELLITE button and uncheck the

LABELS box. Notice the Landmark pinpoints are erased from the screen. Check the LABELS box again and the Landmarks return.

3. Click the MAP in the upper right hand corner of the map to switch from SATELLITE view.

See Figure 6.

Figure 6: Map View

4. In the Customer Filters Widget, enter “30” into the Miles Radius box. Click the APPLY FILTER. Notice the Circle defined on the GPS map showing all the vehicles inside and outside the 30 mile radius filter. See Figure 7.

Figure 7: Customer Filters

5. Select +ADD FILTERS. Scroll through the list of 54 filters that can be applied to the data. 6. Select the RED CAR which is located outside the 30 mile radius. See Figure 8.

Figure 8: Fleet Management

7. Review the widget for the selected vehicle. What information is provided about the vehicle and the driver? III. Exercise

1) Zoom in to the Car Rental location(with mouse scroll or zoom and pan control form the left);

2) Switch to satelite view by clicking the map button from the upper right windows;

3) Filter 40 miles radius from the „Miles Radius” box in the Custom Filter menu from the left, in

order to see all the vechiles inside this 40 miles area;

4) Select a vechicle in order to see all the information on right side of the window; IV. Check Your Knowledge

A. Questions:

1. ACME Rental partners with which of the following vendor(s) (choose all that apply): A. Shell B. Panera Bread C. Exxon Mobile D. Starbucks E. C & D F. A & B

2. TRUE OR FALSE – The vehicle location can be tracked via a GPS transmitter. 3. TRUE OR FALSE – This Thingworx application gives the driver’s rental agreement on the

customer detail widget

4. This ThingWorx application allows the rental company to communicate with the driver by the following methods (choose all that apply):

A. Email B. LoJack C. Text D. OnStar E. Phone call F. B & D

5. ________ filters can be applied to the data that is displayed in this Thingworx application: A. Three (3) B. Twenty-four (24) C. Fifty-four (54) D. Seventy-five (75)

B. Answers:

1. C, D 2. TRUE 3. TRUE 4. A,C,E 5. C

III. Consumer IoT Value I. Lecture

There is a MP4 video with audio that shows the slides for the lecture. It is located at: Guided_Tour_ThingWorx_App\Module_3\Lecture_Module_3

Managing and monitoring of vehicles is not a new idea. These ideas have been in existence from companies like LoJack, an anti-theft vehicle tracking system, and OnStar, a vehicle diagnostics, navigation and security system to name a few. In both cases, they leveraged the technology to provide the driver with valuable services which could be monetized. Also, both systems rely on vehicle telematics.

Telematics encompasses telecommunications, vehicular technologies, road transportation, road safety, electrical engineering (sensors, instrumentation, wireless communications, etc.), computer science (multimedia, Internet, etc.). It involves the technology of sending, receiving and storing information via telecommunication devices in conjunction with affecting control application in vehicles and with control of vehicles on the move. It leverages Global Positioning System technology integrated with computers and mobile communications technology in automotive navigation systems.

Emad Isaac, CTO of LoJack, defines Telematics as "The potential for collection, aggregation, and storage of pertinent data that can be digested locally, or post-processed remotely."

The rental car IoT applications have benefits for the end users, or those who rent the car. Have you ever had to change a flat tire or ran out of gas? This would not be very fun when you are already late for that important meeting. The application is constantly monitoring driver activities and events (time, location, and vehicle). With remote diagnostics, the rental car company can provide better preventive maintenance and service to continuously check the tire pressure or fuel gauge and alert the driver or even have him/her stop by an Exxon Mobile to get tires inflated or fill up with fuel. Or if there is a catastrophic event like a flat tire, they can quickly send out a truck from the closest Exxon Mobile station, to fix the problem and get the customer back on the road. The ACME car rental goal is to use the IoT application to minimize road issues and provide the best service.

In the application, users can find more information on a specific driver and the vehicle. Different widgets manage information coming from the vehicles’ computer monitoring engine rpms,

speed, and throttle position. It also monitors driver’s activity and lists driving infractions and other events. Vehicle blogs can monitor events like low tire pressure, thrown engine error codes and communication between the driver and the rental company via email, text or phone call. All of this data is captured in the system for tracking purposes.

Because all of this information is collected inside the system it is all searchable, can be queried, and can be analyzed to make informed actionable decisions. This is very beneficial to technicians who may be trying to analyze what series of events happened at any time.

With all the benefits, there are some potential concerns in the manner in which the rental company leverages the data. Many customers are concerned about issues around privacy and whether BIG BROTHER is watching them. In today’s modern world, privacy is becoming a real concern as companies try to understand both the behaviors of their products and their customers. It’s not just the government that is watching you today, but your entire world and experience is being watched. In Ted Radio Hour from January 31, 2014, “The End of Privacy” NPR discusses the challenges faced when more convenience costs the consumer their privacy.

Another customer concern with IoT applications is security. Based on a recent article (HP Warns Of IoT Security Risks) from InformationWeek, HP fortify Security Software unit tested 10 popular devices likely to be included on the Internet of things and found 70% of them contained security exposures. On the average, each device contained 25 holes, or risks of compromising the home network.

Devices on the IoT typically communicate through the use of unencrypted data, sometimes via a Wi-Fi network that's easily snooped. Cyber Security is required as the Internet of Things is expected to include 50 billion devices by 2020, according to Gartner.

The Thingworx application has a Security Model that enables simple, secure visibility and access control to devices and information that directly maps to complex business ecosystems. Customers, dealer networks, third party service organizations and internal users can be given the proper permissions to accomplish tasks while protecting sensitive data from users who should not have access. II. Demonstration

There is a MP4 video with audio that shows the step-by-step instructions. It is located at: Guided_Tour_ThingWorx_App\Module_3\Demo_Module_3

1. Select the DETAILS button from the right hand panel. Notice the various tabs across the bottom of the window.

2. For the first tab, DRIVING EVENTS, select the various events in the list, and explore how

the list is linked to the graph report for the customer score and the Landmark pinpoints on the map for the route. See Figure 9.

Figure 9: Hyperlinking of selected vehicle data

3. Select the ENGINE LOAD Tab. What is the time span and max and min values for engine

load? 4. Select the SPEED Tab. What is the max and min speeds for vehicle? 5. Select the THROTTLE POSITION Tab. What is the number of data points that are collected

during the time span? 6. Select the NOTES Tab. The Vehicle blog is shown in a list. Select the View EXPANDED

button as shown in Figure 10. The expanded view shows all the communication back and forth between the car rental agent and the driver. Review some of the comments. You can even add a new post.

Figure 10 – Vehicle Blog

7. Add a new post to the vehicle log using the +ADD NEW POST button. Add a title and description for the post and notice how it’s added to the list.

8. Select the RENTAL AGREEMENT Tab. Select the Rental Agreement button to show the agreement document.

9. Review the vehicle widget that displays the customer score and specific vehicle details. See Figure 11.

Figure 11: Vehicle Details

In the Message to Driver blog, enter a message to the driver. You can email or SMS text the

message to the driver. See Figure 12.

Figure 12: Bi-directional communication

III. Exercise

1) Add a new post to the vehicle log using the +ADD NEW POST button. Add a title and

description for the post and notice how it’s added to the list;

2) Select the RENTAL AGREEMENT Tab. Select the Rental Agreement button to show the agreement document;

3) Review the vehicle widget that displays the customer score and specific vehicle details;

4) In the Message to Driver blog, enter a message to the driver. You can email or SMS text the message to the driver

IV. Check Your Knowledge

A. Questions:

1. By 2020, the Internet of Things will connect up to _______ smart devices. A. 9 Billion B. 20 Billion C. 50 Billion D. 3 Trillion

2. TRUE OR FALSE – Only the overall customer driving score (and not discrete driving event

scores) is displayed on the selected vehicle details mashup page.

3. TRUE OR FALSE – The vehicle blog records comments from the rental car company, but not from the driver.

4. _________ involves the technology of sending, receiving and storing information via telecommunication devices in conjunction with affecting control application in vehicles and with control of vehicles on the move:

A. Cellular B. Telephonics C. Telematics D. Teleportation E. GPS F. Hooked on Phonics

5. ________ and security are two major concerns among IoT companies and their customers. A. Intelligence B. Personification C. Privacy D. Feasibility E. Manufacturability

B. Answers:

1. C 2. FALSE – Both overall and discrete driving scores are displayed 3. FALSE – The blog records comments from both the driver and the rental car company 4. C 5. C

IV. Platform as a Service (PaaS) IoT Value I. Lecture

There is a MP4 video with audio that shows the slides for the lecture. It is located at: Guided_Tour_ThingWorx_App\Module_4\Lecture_Module_4

ThingWorx is an “all in one” Modeling and Mash up development platform that lets developers create M2M and IoT applications written to benefit the end user. It integrates both the modeling and mash up for quick and agile development and iteration of the model and its visualizations. It leverages a cloud-computing approach to connect devices on the edge through a network to the business application similar to the ACME Rental Thingworx application for fleet management.

According to the National Institute of Science and Technology definition of Cloud Computing (NIST Special Publication 800-145, Peter Mell Timothy Grance, September 2011) “Cloud computing is a model for enabling ubiquitous, convenient, on-demand network access to a shared pool of configurable computing resources (e.g., networks, servers, storage, applications, and services) that can be rapidly provisioned and released with minimal management effort or service provider interaction. This cloud model is composed of five essential characteristics, three service models, and four deployment models.”

The five characteristics include On-demand self-service, broad network access, resource pooling, rapid elasticity, and measured service. The three service models include 1) Software as a Service (SaaS) 2) Platform as a Service (PaaS) and 3) Infrastructure as a Service (IaaS). The four deployment models include 1) private cloud 2) community cloud 3) public cloud and/or 4) Hybrid cloud. (a composition of two or more distinct cloud infrastructures (private, community, or public)).

The three service models for cloud computing can be described as:

Software as a Service: SaaS allows the provider’s applications to run on a cloud infrastructure. The applications are accessible from various client devices through either a thin client interface, such as a web browser (e.g., web-based email), or a program interface. The consumer does not manage or control the underlying cloud infrastructure with the possible exception of limited user-specific application configuration settings.

Platform as a Service: PaaS deploys onto the cloud infrastructure consumer-created or acquired applications created using programming languages, libraries, services, and tools supported by the provider. The consumer does not manage or control the underlying cloud infrastructure but has control over the deployed applications and possibly configuration settings for the application-hosting environment.

Infrastructure as a Service: IaaS provides processing, storage, networks, and other fundamental computing resources where the consumer is able to deploy and run arbitrary software, which can include operating systems and applications. The consumer does not manage or control the underlying cloud infrastructure but has control over operating systems, storage, and deployed applications; and possibly limited control of select networking components (e.g., host firewalls). See Figure 13.

Figure 13: Cloud Computing Service Models

These cloud computing models are creating huge business markets to disrupt the IT industry

and business community. In the last 12 months, adoption of platform as a service (PaaS) has increased dramatically and it is now one of the fastest growing areas of all the cloud computing services. Gartner estimates a steep rise in PaaS adoption and forecasts an increase in spending to more than $2.9 billion by 2016. By 2016, Gartner estimates that every organization will run some or all of its business software on public or private PaaS. IDC also expects a sharp uptake, estimating that the worldwide PaaS market is set to increase to more than $14 billion by 2017 as organizations look to speed up application development and decrease infrastructure costs. IDC predicts that over the next four years the compound annual growth rate for PaaS will be around 30 percent.

In the recent 2013 Forbes article by Louis Columbus, Demystifying Cloud Vendors, the major cloud vendors (Amazon, Google, HP, IBM, Microsoft, Oracle, Salesforce.com, SAP and VMWare) were analyzed for their strategy for Cloud Services, Professional Services for Consumption, Enabling Technologies and Professional Services for building and running applications. As you can see, the world’s leading software companies are all heavily investing in cloud computing offerings for their customers. Figure 14 shows how they rank among their peers.

Figure 14: Cloud Vendors Comparison by Gartner Group

There are a number of reasons why PaaS is experiencing fast market adoption. Not only does

PaaS allow IT teams to do much more with what they have; it also reduces development time - drastically. Add to this the fact that the cloud market is now maturing and you can start to see why organizations are seeking out PaaS options.

Another driver for market adoption is the increased demand for custom applications in order to gain competitive advantage, especially as organizations look to innovate. With the goal of getting quality applications to market faster, we have also seen a rise in the need for and focus on Development Operations (DevOps). DevOps represents a cultural shift in how business requirements are turned into software. The fundamental goal of this culture is to simultaneously and significantly increase the velocity and quality of software releases.

A platform (PaaS) is a software and hardware environment under which various smaller application programs can be designed and run. Facebook is a good example of a platform. Using Facebook as platform, developers can create smaller applications. End users benefit from some or all of those applications.

ThingWorx is an “all in one” Modeling and Mash up development platform that lets developers create M2M and IoT applications written to benefit the end user. It integrates both the modeling and mash up for quick and agile development and iteration of the model and its visualizations.

The Composer is an end-to-end application modeling environment that makes it easy to model the Things, Business Logic, Visualization, Data Storage, Collaboration, and Security required for a connected application.

The Mashup Builder allows the user to build their own dashboard or Mashup using common components for visualization such as gauges and tables from a pre-existing library in THWX. These components are called Widgets and include buttons, gauges, tables, lists, charts, maps, entry boxes, blogs, and wikis among many other options to choose from. The mashup is built using simple drag and drop Widgets, to build up the dashboard page.

The platform is an “application developer’s dream” to create custom IoT applications like the ACME Fleet Management application to connect smart devices, people and systems together faster than the traditional software methods of the past. II. Demonstration

There is a MP4 video with audio that shows the step-by-step instructions. It is located at: Guided_Tour_ThingWorx_App\Module_4\Demo_Module_4.

1. Select the DRIVING EVENT Tab. Select the any of the Landmark pinpoints on the vehicle path on the map. Notice how the driving event list toggles to the specific event. Also, the associated graph also highlights the specific score recorded for that event. See Figure 15.

Figure 15: Hyperlinking Vehicle Driving Event across widgets

2. Select the SQUEAL (Search, Query and Analyze) Mashup Tab next to Details Tab. Notice the

Mashup Builder Logic. 3. Select the THING GEAR for the specific vehicle. Notice the dashboard of all the specific

data related to this specific vehicle. See Figure 16.

Figure 16: SQUEAL Vehicle Details Dashboard

4. Select the ADMINISTRATOR Mashup Tab next to Squeal Tab. Notice the three tabs at the

top left. Corporate Discount Programs, Event Types and Events. 5. Select the EVENT TYPES Tab. Notice all the various events types. What column information

is displayed for each type? Which event types send alerts? Which ones give the user positive points to their score? See Figure 17.

Figure 17: Event Types

6. Select the EVENTS Tab next. Notice all the various events that are logged. Can you see which events are logged for a specific driver? Does it show you when and where the event occurred? How does each of the events impact the driver’s score? See Figure 18.

Figure 18: Big Data Events

III. Exercise

1) Choose the „Driver Events” and select any of the land marks to see the log for specific events and driver;

2) Search for a vehicle in the Squeal page and click on the result in order to get specific information about that vechile;

3) Check the Event Types and Events tabs from the Administrator page in order to see all the information of those events;

IV. Check Your Knowledge

A. Questions:

1. Thingworx provides rapid application development based on a ___________ service model of cloud computing.

A. Software as a Service (SaaS) B. Platform as a Service (PaaS)

C. Infrastructure as a Service (IaaS) D. Applications as a Service (AaaS) 2. TRUE OR FALSE – An increase demand for standard applications to gain a competitive

advantage has driven increased demand for PaaS.

3. TRUE OR FALSE – The ACME rental program is a platform that was developed on the Thingworx application.

4. ThingWorx SQUEAL offers the following capabilities (choose all that apply): A. Analyze data B. Migrate Data C. Query Data D. Search Data

5. TRUE OR FALSE – Events can be set up to send alerts.

B. Answers:

1. B 2. FALSE – There is an increase demand for custom applications not standard applications 3. FALSE – The ACME rental program is an application that was developed on the

ThingWorx platform; 4. A,C,D 5. TRUE