01. ThingWorx Foundation
ENABLING THE CREATION OF BREAKTHROUGH APPLICATIONS, SOLUTIONS, AND EXPERIENCES FOR
THE SMART, CONNECTED WORLD
The explosion of the Internet of Things (IoT) has created an
unprecedented demand for smart, connected products. With
the unlimited potential of the burgeoning IoT in their sights,
developers are clamoring for the best tools and technologies
to create innovative solutions that harness the power of the
smart, connected world.
The Internet of Things (IoT) is a new world, with unique challenges for developers, enterprises, and end-users alike
as they seek to create, deploy, and integrate IoT technologies and solutions. When enterprises make the decision
to implement an IoT strategy, they are entering uncharted territory. Conventional development methods and
technologies are rendered ineffective, and they must establish a new technology infrastructure. A ready-built IoT
platform provides a seamless approach to rapidly create comprehensive, feature-rich IoT solutions and speed timeto-insight,
critical to the success of industrial IoT implementations.
Meet ThingWorx Foundation
ThingWorx Foundation is the nucleus of the ThingWorx
platform, enabling the rapid creation of complete
solutions for the industrial IoT. It offers the industry’s
deepest functional capabilities to connect, create, and
deploy IoT solutions faster and more easily than ever
before. With out-of-the box extensibility and the largest
ecosystem of partners, ThingWorx Foundation easily
scales to accommodate business growth, enabling
enterprises to maximize the return on investment in new
technologies.
With ThingWorx Foundation, enterprises and developers easily:
• Create, test, and deploy industrial IoT solutions faster than ever thought possible
• Build more feature-rich solutions in a fraction of the time
• Deploy IoT solutions that are scalable, secure, and meet the needs of the largest of enterprises
Specification
Key Benefits
• Model-driven rapid application design speeds time
to market
• The Thing Model abstracts the digital details
and enables connection to all other ThingWorx
modules for a seamless developer experience
• Flexible connectivity options maximize market
opportunity and minimize integration efforts
• Live collaboration sessions enable more effective,
context-aware communication among developers
and analysts
• Open platform empowers enterprises to maximize
existing technology investments
How It Works
ThingWorx Foundation connects to all ThingWorx
components – ThingWorx Analytics, ThingWorx
Utilities, ThingWorx Studio, and ThingWorx Industrial
Connectivity. This powerful integration enables
a simplified, seamless approach for developers
to rapidly create comprehensive, feature-rich IoT
solutions and deliver fast time-to-insight critical to the
success of industrial IoT implementations.
Also built with security in mind, ThingWorx
Foundation leverages PKI infrastructure for certificate
validation, and its granular security model enables
data isolation and service execution.
ThingWorx Foundation is comprised of the following
components:
Application Enablemen Platform
The ThingWorx Foundation includes the Application
Enablement Platform (AEP), a design and runtime
engine for IoT applications that enables the rapid
creation of applications that leverage real-time,
bi-directional connectivity to “things” as needed.
AEP includes the following:
• Thing Model: A digital entity that represents a
physical asset, person, organizational element, or
work process
• Next Generation Composer: An integrated
application modeling environment that uses
modern browser concepts to improve developer
efficiency, including an intuitive user interface and
optimized workflows
• Mashup Builder: A “drag and drop” solution that
allows developers and business users to create
interactive applications, dashboards, collaborative
workspaces, and mobile interfaces without the
need for coding
• Integration capabilities: Connection to other
systems enables developers to create more
feature-rich solutions quickly and easily
• Anomaly Detection: configuration of anomaly
alerts is accessible in Composer, simplifying the
implementation of powerful analytics capabilities
Connection Services
ThingWorx Foundation connection services,
software agents, and toolkits are available to
establish connectivity between devices or assets
and ThingWorx Foundation via the communication
method and hardware best suited for each scenario.
Connection Services include the following:
• Out-of-the-box connectivity to industrial
devices via ThingWorx Industrial Connectivity
• Connection Servers: Support connectivity to
devices via several methods, including 3rd party
device clouds, direct network connections, Open
APIs
• Device Cloud Adapters: Offer scalable, secure
connectivity and native ThingWorx modeling for
devices connected through device clouds, including
Azure, AWS, and GE Predix - enabling enterprises
to more fully maximize existing cloud investments
• Integration Framework Connectors: Enable
users to easily connect to external back-end
systems, including ERP, CRM, and SCM and
consume the data seamlessly in ThingWorx
• Advanced Capabilities: More sophisticated
tools are available, including secure, bi-directional
file transfer, application tunneling, and video
streaming.
Edge
ThingWorx AlwaysOn connectivity, via ThingWorx
SDKs and the Edge MicroServer, provides a scalable,
secure, and easily deployable communication
technology to facilitate continuous bi-directional
connectivity between sensors, devices, equipment,
and the ThingWorx server – regardless of network
architecture.
• Edge MicroServer: Prebuilt agent application
that can “drop in and run” in a Windows or Linux
environment, can run on a gateway, or be directly
embedded into a device
• Edge AlwaysOn SDK: Software libraries that allow
users to create their own custom agent, available
in several platforms and programming languages –
Java, C, .NET, iOS, Android
Connecting the ThingWorx Platform
The ThingModel is the nucleus of the entire
ThingWorx Platform, linking all the layers of the
technology stack.
The Thing Model is the digital representation of an
actual physical “thing” – made up of entities that
contain real-time data on that thing’s properties,
services, subscriptions, and events.
The Thing Model enables the rapid creation of
an infinite number of IoT solutions that leverage
bi-directional connectivity to “things.” It powers the
drag-and-drop functionality that eliminates the need
for coding and speeds the creation of high quality
applications, dashboards, workspaces, and mobile
interfaces. .
The Thing Model also automatically generates
a RESTful API, enabling it to be easily integrated
into all ThingWorx platform modules. This creates
a seamless transition between applications and
ensures consistency and reliability of “thing”-related
information across all ThingWorx-powered solutions
and integrated applications and technologies.
Picture > 01. ThingWorx Foundation Picture
Download > 01. ThingWorx Foundation Sheet
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