Q: Can I try DCC for free?

Yes. New customers or potential new customers, will receive at least one free 30 days license, that you can apply to any device connecting to the platform. Within the 30 days, you can move the license between devices. Should you need more time, just contact us. We can also arrange a demonstration online, where we show you around.

Q: What payment methods do you accept?

We base our services on B2B and will invoice you based on your VAT number. There are no upfront payments. If we have a local distributor in your region, we will refer to that.

Question 1

What is DCC?

Accepted Answer

The Inuatek Data Collection Cloud (DCC) is a platform agnostic data collection solution that integrates tightly with selected IoT Gateways, particularly Secomea SiteManagers. The DCC has specific focus on giving clear overview of raw-data and the ability of using this for building dashboards by the integrated tools, or to trigger notifications to be sent by email, SMS or displayed in dashboards.

Question 2

What is unique about DCC compared to other cloud platforms?

Accepted Answer

Three points stand out:
1. DCC is designed without reliance on Azure or AWS technologies and can also run on-premises. As a result, it is incredibly portable and cost effective.
2. DCC contains distinct data analytics functions, such as event triggers based on the correlation of different data points and other elements for enriching the acquired data.
3. Finally, its strong interaction with Secomea SiteManager gateways provides various benefits, including fast and instant configuration management, a very high security level, and the possibility to access VNC and Web-visu applications of PLCs and HMIs directly from a user dashboard.

Question 3

Are standard MQTT devices supported?

Accepted Answer

Yes, any MQTT device capable of entering a JSON blob format for the data format is supported for data collection. For some devices, we have made bidirectional support, such as Seneca and SIA Connect, which makes it possible to publish a new setting that the user has entered in a dashboard and which will result in the change to be made on a PLC via, e.g., Modbus, Siemens S7 or similar protocol.

Question 4

What advantages does a Secomea SiteManager have over MQTT devices?

Accepted Answer

There are in fact several advantages:
1. The native protocol used between the SiteManager and DCC is not only highly secure but extremely compact, which minimizes the total amount of data transmitted.
2. The same protocol allows for real-time changes to the data collection configuration inside the SiteManager,
3. The SiteManager can be used concurrently for Remote tunneling access to the equipment for troubleshooting and programming.
4. The LinkManager Mobile API allows for remote VNC or Web-visu access to a PLC or HMI from a DCC dashboard,
5. The same mechanism allows a dashboard to not only read values but also to write a value to a PLC (currently supported for ModBus).

Question 5

Do you base it on Azure or AWS tools?

Accepted Answer

No. We have built the platform completely cloud agnostic, which enables us to make it very portable and even installable on-premises. We do have a preference using Azure for hosting the solution, which means it is easy to deploy in a private tenant. But since we are not using any of the IoT tools of the cloud platform, the solution is extremely cost effective.

Question 6

What data protocols do you support at the factory?

Accepted Answer

Typical protocols are Modbus, S7, OPC-UA, EtherNet/IP or plain http/https, since these are natively supported by a Secomea SiteManager that is the typical choice of IoT gateway. Check our Supported IoT Section here (https://www.inuatek.com/dcc-platform)for more info.

Question 7

Is there a mobile app for DCC?

Accepted Answer

Yes, indeed there is, it is included in the standard subscription, and available for both 
Android: Inuatek DCC - Apps on Google Play (https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.inuatek.dcc)and 
iPhone: ‎Inuatek DCC App - App Store
(https://apps.apple.com/us/app/inuatek-dcc/id6764078441)Here some of the unique features:
 • View Next-Gen standard and Fleet dashboards
 • Receive DCC alerts as mobile push notifications
 • Open the relevant dashboard directly by tapping a notification
 • See the affected device and the dashboard period associated with the alert
 • Use supported remote-access widgets, including VNC and WebVisu
 • Interact with supported two-way dashboard widgets

Question 8

What is the billing and subscription fee based on?

Accepted Answer

DCC is based on subscription per IoT Gateway and the amount of data per hour. This is managed by a license you apply to an IoT Gateway. The price model is designed to allow starting small and with minimum cost, and scales with your needs. Our Enterprise model allows to you buy a bucket of data starting at ½ billion sample points annually, which you can use across all your devices.<
See more about pricing and licensing here: Pricing | Inuatek(https://www.inuatek.com/pricing)

Question 9

Can I try DCC for free?

Accepted Answer

Yes. New customers or potential new customers, will receive at least one free 30 days license, that you can apply to any device connecting to the platform. Within the 30 days, you can move the license between devices. Should you need more time, just contact us. We can also arrange a demonstration online, where we show you around.

Question 10

What payment methods do you accept?

Accepted Answer

We base our services on B2B and will invoice you based on your VAT number. There are no upfront payments. If we have a local distributor in your region, we will refer to that.

Question 11

How often will I be billed?

Accepted Answer

We generally bill  a license at delivery, and you a license can be valid for 1-5 years, and be based on auto-expiry or auto-renewal as you prefer. For data pool agreement (Enterprise), you will be invoiced the data pool 12 months, in advance, or in special cases per quarter.

Question 12

Can I change my subscription plan?

Accepted Answer

Yes, your plan is based on the number of active licenses available. You can always change licenses from auto-renewal to expiry, making the automatically terminate at the end of the license period. Your licenses are based on the number of sample points per hour, but calculated per day. If you exceed the daily data limit, you will be notified by email, and in the monthly consumption report, so you can alter the sampling interval or buy a license with a higher data limit.

Question 13

Can I limit collected data to fit a plan and still get required value of the data?

Accepted Answer

Yes. A unique feature of the solution is that you can apply aggregation of data in the SiteManager IoT Gateway. E.g., by sending an average over a time period, or only sending certain data, when another sample point has a certain value. Adjustment of such aggregation are done in the DCC IoT Admin menu and automatically pushed to the SiteManager and becomes active immediately.

Question 14

Can I monitor how much data I use?

Accepted Answer

Yes, In the IoT Administration menu, you can follow real time, how much data a given IoT Gateway collects per hour for the last 24 hours, and for the last 7 days. Additionally, the Usage menu will give you a list overview of all your attached IoT Gateways and their consumption.

Question 15

How do I exclude an IoT Gateways from the billing?

Accepted Answer

You simply delete the device but remember that it will also delete the data history. In case you are running a test, you can contact your point of purchase and request a 30-day trial period.

Question 16

Will data collected via a cellular connection be expensive?

Accepted Answer

One of Inuatek’s core competencies is the compaction of data over cellular connections. And the collection protocol between the SiteManager gateway and the DCC is designed to be more compact than any other collection protocol incl. MQTT. In addition, there are several ways you can aggregate data in the SiteManager before submitting to the DCC cloud, E.g., by sending an average over a time period, or only sending certain data, when another sample point has a certain value.

Question 17

How is a "Sample Point" defined?

Accepted Answer

For a license like e.g. 1000 "Sample Points" (SP) per hour, a SP is considered a timestamped sensor data reading from the end device independent of type. I.e. a SP can be a boolean, float and even a string. That means you could in principle have multiple information in a single data point, by e.g. bit-masking information out of a Byte value.

Question 18

How is the license Sample Point data limit handled?

Accepted Answer

A license with e.g. 1000 Sample Points (SP) per hour, is in fact calculated over 24 hours. That means you could have a machine sending 1000 SP per hour for 24 hours per day, or 3000 SP per hour for 8 hours per day. If you exceed the limit 5 times during a calendar month, you will be notified by email, so you can adjust you sampling rate or change to another license with a higher limit. Note that we do not truncate or throttle the data, or in anyway affect the data even if exceeding the limit.

Question 19

Do you sell the IoT Gateways to be used with the solution?

Accepted Answer

Yes, but only in Denmark. We can provide you with IoT Gateways, such as SiteManagers, Seneca, Teltonika, SIA Connect etc., and we also assist with configuration. For other regions we will refer to the distributors on your preferred device.

Question 20

Is DCC cybersecure?

Accepted Answer

Yes. DCC has been designed with cybersecurity in mind in compliance with NIS2 and IEC62443. All connections are strong encrypted, and you can apply 2FA for user logins. 
The DCC platform is hosted fully on Microsoft Azure, which provides a secure and internationally certified foundation, including:
•ISO 27001 – Information Security
•ISO 27018 - Personal Data Protection
•SOC 2 - Security, Availability, Confidentiality
•GDPR compliance
Azure ensures robust physical, network, and operational security.

Question 21

Is my personal information kept private and secure?

Accepted Answer

Yes. We comply with GDPR regulations, and we do not use your information for any other commercial purposes. The platform stores only limited personal data such as:
•Name
•Company email
•Optional phone number
No sensitive personal data is collected or processed.
All customer data is stored exclusively in Microsoft Azure data centres located within the European Union to ensure GDPR and local legal compliance. 
Also refer to the detailed privacy policy when logging in.

Question 22

How can I reset my password?

Accepted Answer

Simply enter your email and select forgot password, and you will be requested to define a new password

Question 23

Can I have multiple accounts?

Accepted Answer

You can have one account associated with one email. This account can, however, have multiple roles, like administrator, dashboard designer etc.
Otherwise you can, as administrator create as many accounts for your users as you like.

Question 24

Can I add and remove privileges/roles for an account?

Accepted Answer

Yes, as an example you can elevate a dashboard user to dashboard designer or even administrator, and vice versa.

Question 25

How can I get technical support?

Accepted Answer

Support is provided via email based on a first come, first service principle with minimum 6 hours response time. Our Premium Support agreement gives you further privileges, incl. a hotline for our 2nd level support staff.
If dealing via our distribution partners, the support is directly with them as 1st level support.

Question 26

What are your support hours?

Accepted Answer

We have regular support hours between 9-16 during normal weekdays. Systems are monitored and maintained outside working hours.

Question 27

What is the guaranteed uptime of the DCC?

Accepted Answer

The hosting center is architected and maintained to ensure an uptime of +99,6%, and historically the uptime has been higher for the last 4 years.

Question 28

Do you offer phone support?

Accepted Answer

Generally, support is via email or our Contact Form, but with an Inuatek Premium Support agreement, you have a direct hotline number during working hours.
If your point of purchase is an Inuatek distribution partner, you may have extended support with a standard agreement.

Question 29

Can I request new features or improvements?

Accepted Answer

We are always interested in your opinion that can improve the product. In fact, most features in the product are based on customer feedback. Additionally, Inuatek offers to build custom features on top of the DCC for specific purposes, which can be related to data analysis, machine learning etc.
Use our Contact Form to post your suggestions.

Question 30

How long is collected data retained?

Accepted Answer

We retain all data for devices with a valid license for 5 years, and for devices without a license or an expired license, you data is kept for 3 months. If you have your own DCC instance under the Enterprise agreement, you can retain data unlimited.

Question 31

If I just need dynamic data to show in a dashboard, how is that charged?

Accepted Answer

It is in fact free if you upgrade to the Extended package, or you have an Enterprise subscription. If you do not want to retain the data, but just display real time in a dashboard, you can mark the datapoints for streaming. You will not be charged for this data. You only pay for data stored in the DCC database.

Question 32

Can I make an alert on a sample point collected from an IoT Gateway?

Accepted Answer

Yes, this I quite easy to define a trigger for a specific event, such as a value chance, a specific threshold or even conditional based on other data points. The notification can then be sent as email, SMS or be used to trigger a visual element on a dashboard.

Question 33

Can I make an alert based on comparing two collected sample points?

Accepted Answer

Yes. It is a typical scenario that to check one sample point, and that has a value, then check another sample value, which combined represent the condition for triggering a notification.

Question 34

Can I add information to the IoT Gateway data collection storage?

Accepted Answer

The Data Refinement module is capable of writing results of calculations into the data storage for the device. This could for instance be the resulting OEE KPI for a batch.

Question 35

Does DCC support OEE calculations?

Accepted Answer

Yes. This is one of the use cases that can be applied. But often modern machinery does not follow the traditional OEE calculation methodology, so we typically look at individual cases, and determine what information would create most value to you, and then we adapt to that.

Question 36

Does the solution provide VPN support?

Accepted Answer

The Secomea and IXON IoT Gateways natively offer VPN tunnelling support, which can be used concurrently with data collection. In the DCC you can define a widget that allows you to embed a VNC or Web-visu connection towards PLCs and HMIs, utilizing the Secomea and IXON APIs.

Question 37

Can I write values back into a PLC?

Accepted Answer

Yes, it is possible from a DCC dashboard to write a value back into a PLC from a Dashboard using the SiteManager LinkManager API. For instance, to clear an alarm, stop/start functions or change a threshold. Currently this is only supported by Modbus.
For Seneca and SIA Connect devices it is also possible to write a value that is translated into the desired field protocol in the MQTT device.

Question 38

Can I export data from DCC?

Accepted Answer

Yes, the Nortbound API allows for other applications such as your MES or ERP system to access the data. Another method is to use the Report module to email a scheduled report in form of a CSV file.
If using Azure Power BI, it is quite easy to use the DCC's ability to push CSV files to an Azure blob, and then make drill down from Power BI

Question 39

Can I use Microsoft PowerBI with DCC?

Accepted Answer

Yes, you can use Power BI to access static data in the DCC

Question 40

How do I establish the first-time connection of a Device to the DCC?

Accepted Answer

Check our Documentation site (https://documentation.inuatek.com/docs/category/getting-started)for details

Question 41

Can I replace a SiteManager and have it take over all settings from the old IoT Gateway?

Accepted Answer

Yes. The easiest way to do this is to perform a “Replace SiteManager” operation on the GateManager. This will result in all settings and certificates to be transferred to the new SiteManager, and this will be accepted as direct replacement on the DCC.

Question 42

Can DCC be branded for my company?

Accepted Answer

Yes. DCC allows for complete private labelling, so your customers will experience it as logging into your own portal. Contact us for more information and possibilities for adapting URLs, logo colors etc.

Question 43

Can I have my own private DCC?

Accepted Answer

Yes. Although the shared DCC cloud service is designed for strict customer separation, it is also designed for deployment as a unique instance. Three options exist: 1) A private instance hosted in the Inuatek Azure tenant, 2) A private instance hosted in your own AWS or Azure tenant, og 3) A private instance installed in your server infrastructure based on Docker.

DCC FAQ

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