Connecting KEPServerEX with Azure IoT Hub

In our earlier blog, we discussed how to connect a device using Azure IoT SDK to Azure IoT Hub. In this blog we’ll connect a KEPServerEX instance, deployed at a factory to the Azure IoT Hub.

KEPServerEX is the industry’s leading connectivity platform that provides a single source of industrial automation data to all of your applications. The platform design allows users to connect, manage, monitor, and control diverse automation devices and software applications through one intuitive user interface — source

We’ll also use ThingWorx Manufacturing App in today’s discussion. This is not required to configure KEPServerEX. We’ll be using it just to simulate devices and control few device tag values.

PTC’s ThingWorx IIoT platform is designed for rapidly developing industrial IoT solutions, with the ability to scale securely from the cloud to the edge. — source

We’ll then connect the KEPServerEX (with IoT Gateway plugin) to Azure IoT Hub directly so, we can capture the events at the Azure cloud end.

KEPServerEX MQTT over TLS connectivity to Azure IoT Hub directly.

Install & configure KEPServerEx & ThingWorx Manufacturing App

We’ll go to Kepware website and install the latest version of the KEPServerEX. Similarly we’ll install the ThingWorx Manufacturing App. The versions we’ll be using in this demo are — KEPServerEX-6.8.796.0 & ThingWorx-Manufacturing-Apps-8.4.0–00. We can refer the detailed steps from here.

The KEPServerEX user interface after installation.

The ThingWorx interface once we login.

By default, the ‘Controls Advisor’ page is opened, otherwise, we can select it from the left side menu.

Now we’ll select the connection, click on the View Connection Information icon and will note down the details.