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AggreGate Changelog

What's new in AggreGate 6.03.00

Nov 13, 2021
  • Featuring completely new React-based Web UI and interactive Web UI Builder, the 6th version of our low-code development platform allows building advanced pixel-perfect browser interfaces.
  • These are not just plain old "IoT dashboards" – you can implement a working UI that follows any Adobe XD sketch without a single line of code!
  • New Features and Improvements:
  • Preserving alert trigger statuses during server restart:
  • Helps to avoid alert re-activation
  • Unicode support in SMS messages:
  • For sending non-English messages
  • Direct authorization in desktop Client:
  • Workspace creation and usage can be avoided
  • Class inheritance:
  • Class hierarchies can be created in large-scale solutions
  • Resource templates:
  • Helps to share master copies of properties between resources
  • New REST API:
  • Token-based authentication, JSON-encoded data
  • Kafka device driver:
  • For high-speed event processing scenarios
  • Protection of application resources from reverse engineering:
  • To secure your IPRs in on-premise products
  • Protection from infinite recursion in model rule sets:
  • To avoid excessive resource usage
  • Application exporting/importing:
  • For Git integration
  • TypeScript API:
  • As an evolution of JavaScript API
  • Application dependencies:
  • For building multi-module low-code apps
  • New-gen permission control:
  • Fine-grained permission schemes for many thousand users
  • Context locking mechanism:
  • To prevent data loss during concurrent editing
  • STOMP protocol support:
  • As an extension of REST API
  • SFTP file transfer support:
  • For monitoring log files and SFTP service health
  • Secure LDAP support:
  • For compatibility with new versions of Active Directory
  • Kerberos V5 authentication support:
  • For working in large enterprise environments
  • HTTP driver enhancements:
  • NTLM and Kerberos authentication, HTTP/HTTPS/SOCKS proxy support, support for DELETE and PUT methods

New in AggreGate 5.61.00 (Nov 23, 2018)

  • In version 5.6, the AggreGate platform has become even more user-friendly and web-oriented.
  • AggreGate Store is our new approach to deployment of AggreGate servers in your network. Now you can distribute your own AggreGate applications for the use in your corporate network or on public access. Download and plug in only the modules and solutions that are required for your project. Add them when necessary as your project grows. Optimize your system resources.
  • Flexible device driver acts as a "driver construction kit". It allows to connect devices that use proprietary protocols by performing deep configuration of the system. It eliminates the need for development of a dedicated device driver in the Java programming language.
  • Welcome a new analytics tool in the AggreGate toolbox – the event correlator – a powerful streaming data processing engine! The correlator is designed for real-time data analyzing and processing, finding specific patterns, identifying trends and much more.
  • JavaScript API is a long-awaited AggreGate API for the most popular programming language. Now you can create modern web interfaces and interact with the server in the same language – JavaScript.
  • AggreGate web interface is given the ability to function autonomously, being managed by the Tomcat web server. A web application that is deployed separately is not bound to a specific server but can connect to any other server.
  • The license checking process can now be centralized and automated by the integration with a license server. AggreGate server administrators no longer need to monitor and manually modify the validity period of plugins included in a license.
  • Other major improvements include:
  • New Data Table types
  • Memory Watchdog
  • Self Monitoring Dashboard
  • Storage Upgrade
  • Deeper Permission Control
  • UI Customization
  • Scaling in UI Builder
  • Avatar Driver for allows working with another server’s devices as if they were available locally, etc.

New in AggreGate 5.41.16 (Sep 11, 2017)

  • 10x Faster Event/Update Storage:
  • We've achieved great results in optimizing AggreGate server performance, especially event and value update storage performance. From now on, a single server can process and persistently store up to a hundred thousand events/updates per second, which is almost equal to 10 billion events per day. Such performance figures don't even require any high-end server hardware.
  • A conventional 2 CPU server with typical server-grade HDDs is the right hardware option. Those results are based on using embedded Apache Cassandra NoSQL database for event storage. Thus, a dedicated multi-node Cassandra cluster may be used for getting even higher event storage/retrieval rates on a single AggreGate server.
  • Graphical Programming Languages:
  • Text code editor in AggreGate 5.4:
  • A new chapter is opened by this release. Presenting AggreGate's graphical and textual programming languages inspired by IEC 61131-3 standard, also known as "SoftPLC". Being one of the major programmable logic controller standards it is widely adopted in various automation fields all over the world. Millions of engineers familiar with SoftPLC languages are now able to use AggreGate as a process control logic development environment. One innovative feature of AggreGate's automation languages is a tight integration of the runtime with the Tibbo Project System hardware. Your programmed logic can access and control all Tibbit modules of a Linux-based TPS board/box.
  • Currently available languages are:
  • Graphical editor in AggreGate 5.4:
  • Function Block Diagram (graphical)
  • Structured Text (textual)
  • Sequential Function Chart (graphical)
  • At your fingertips now is a new IDE with UI editors for graphical languages, code editors for textual languages, debug tools as well as the runtime environment. SoftPLC is a large development effort we will continue in the future releases.
  • Widget Component SDK:
  • Widget capabilities are no longer limited by the standard set of components. Now it can be easily extended. New Widget Component SDK allows to implement custom visual components in Java and use them in AggreGate widgets. Extend AggreGate's wide component palette with UI controls best suited to your needs.
  • Built-in Timestamps and Quality:
  • Every atomic data item of AggreGate is a Data Table. From this release on, all data tables have two important properties: timestamp and quality. Timestamp holds a date-time mark of value received or updated. Quality is a number that usually indicates a trust level of the data items which is determined by a device protocol in most cases. These traits come from the automation industry but AggreGate's cross-industry nature allows to use them in any type of solution. Most popular AggreGate drivers already enrich every data item with appropriate quality and timestamp.
  • Refreshed Icons:
  • New icon set in AggreGate 5.4:
  • We continue to make our UI interface more clear and user friendly. The next step is the lightweight icons. We redesigned them to be up to date with modern flat paradigm. New color coding assists user to navigate over various available toolbar actions.
  • Server Remote Upgrading:
  • Server remote upgrade in AggreGate 5.4:
  • As every software, AggreGate needs to be upgraded from time to time. This operation frequently requires a field visit and can cost a lot in case of multi-server distributed installations. To reduce company's expenses a remote AggreGate server upgrade operation is now supported. You can use our Unified Console application to connect to a remote server, upload a server upgrade bundle file and wait while the upgrade process is finished. That's it! All operations including database backup, stopping server, upgrading and restarting will be performed at the server side automatically.
  • Secure and Reliable Agent Communications:
  • Local agent communication settings in AggreGate 5.4:
  • Another major feature of the release is encrypted and/or compressed communication over AggreGate protocol. Agent-Server communications now can be SSL-protected. When transferred data amount is critical, data compression can be enabled in parallel to encryption.
  • In release 5.4 Local Agent driver got embedded buffering and event confirmation mechanism. You will not loose any important data on sudden connection breaks. Agent accumulates historical values while there is no connection with the server. Once connection is reestablished all buffered data is sent to the server. Another new option enables the server to confirm received and persistently stored events. This means the agent will buffer events and consider them as non-delivered untill it has received a confirmation from the server.
  • Component Connectors:
  • Electricity diagram with connectors in AggreGate 5.4:
  • It's now easier to draw diagrams in AggreGate. Connectors allow to visually link UI components with each other, so when the component is dragged in UI editor it remains linked with the other one. A set of pin points allowing to attach connectors to components can be defined manually or automatically. You can use connectors to visualize structured maps and electrical/piping schemes.
  • IT Service Modeling and Monitoring:
  • We are bringing our IT & Network Management solution to a new level by turning it into a full-fledged IT Service Management System. In this release, we introduce several essential instruments for that: Configuration Management Database (CMDB), metrics engine and topology-based root-cause analysis tools. Another ITSM functionality - IP address management module - is now available and you can use it out of the box.
  • Granulation:
  • We're introducing a brand-new highly customizable data aggregation and consolidation tool: Granulation. The granulation engine allows to combine datasets into compact representation that contains all important aspects of original information in virtually any form suitable for later processing. This allows to reduce memory and storage consumption along with boosting data processing performance.
  • New Drivers:
  • AggreGate 5.4 includes new device drivers:
  • CoAP - gives the possibility to send requests and response messages of the CoAP protocol.
  • MQTT - allows to communicate with MQTT broker and to subscribe to its topics.
  • IEC 104 - provides communication with devices supporting IEC 60870-5-104 Protocol.
  • DLMS/COSEM - implements smart metering communications open standard (IEC 62056).
  • SMI-S - provides read/write access to SMI-S properties and allows to call SMI-S object methods.

New in AggreGate 5.31.15 (Jan 30, 2017)

  • When we were preparing this release, we focused on several areas:
  • Enhancing GIS capabilities: Map UI component is now multi-layered and supports different types of source geo data. New Geo-fence objects together with Geo-fence live editor bring more power and ease to deal with geo positioning and geo zones.
  • Better OPC connectivity: OPC driver received asynchronous IO, manual tag support, better timestamp and quality handling, and it also became faster. Along with on-board OPC DA connectivity, AggreGate got support for OPC AE and HDA using standalone AggreGate OPC Agent.
  • Providing richer integration capabilities: New AggreGate OPC Server allows users to access AggreGate unified data model over OPC DA. AggreGate integration means are extended by the server REST API providing read, write variable access, as well as function invocation.
  • Improving usability: Dashboard Designer is another step to make AggreGate tuning more visual and intuitive: just edit any dashboard on-the-fly. Improved variable charts became informative, elegant and responsive.
  • Workflows:
  • AggreGate 5.3 features a Workflow module. Workflows are user-defined actions that combine server-side data processing operations and operator interaction steps (UI Procedures). The Workflow module helps define those actions by adding various steps that may depend on each other and benefit from conditional branching.
  • Workflows are ideal for configuring various incident resolution and debriefing patterns that will be interactively launched upon various alerts. Thus, workflows will be crucial for any AggreGate-based umbrella monitoring and management project, be it IT, automation or security infrastructure management.
  • Maps and Geo-fences:
  • This release gets significant GIS improvements: redesigned Map component, special Geo-fence objects and a set of tools to deal with spacial data.
  • Map Component:
  • We've drastically reworked the map UI component. The new layered structure brings a lot more features and flexibility. Now you can have several map layers, reorder them, make them shown or hidden. There are three layer types available:
  • Context Mask for displaying location data delivered from devices. Allows AggreGate users to visualize Network Topology, GPS tracks and similar.
  • Geo-fence Mask renders geo-fence objects like points, paths and polygons. Geo-fence objects are presented by appropriate system contexts that provide geolocation data (points) and processing functions.
  • Node Table is the most flexible layer type that accepts dynamic data table as geolocation source. It is intended for displaying non-standard objects like data imported from external GIS systems.
  • Each layer can be customized. Special expressions are used to define object visual representation: color, image, labels, and so on. Events like Node Click, Node Hover allows you to bind geo-informational data with the domain data, for example it is possible to track fleet positions on the map and have detailed information about the particular vehicle speed, fuel level, current driver available in a panel when pointing or clicking a mouse on a vehicle icon.
  • Geo-fences:
  • Meet a new AggreGate object type - Geo-fence. Each instance of a Geo-fence represents a set of points, path or area positioned on the globe. It is easy to create and edit instances visually via special Geo-fence Editor widget. Geo-fences are widely used by the Map UI component to display and interact with GIS data. Besides, Geo-fences provide several functions to determine inclusion, intersection and distance between geo-objects.
  • Dashboard Designer:
  • Presenting you a mint dashboard designer. It makes you forget an old non-intuitive way of configuring dashboards and replaces it with on-the-fly visual building end editing. From now on you can open dashboards in a thick client and edit live: drag-n-drop elements, change their location, size and other options.
  • Uplevel OPC Integration:
  • AggreGate became more friendly to OPC - a widely used industrial standard. Server connectivity were enhanced by improving OPC driver and presenting a new Native OPC Agent. AggreGate integration abilities were extended due to a new OPC server.
  • OPC Driver:
  • We continue improving AggreGate for better compliance with OPC standards. In the 5.3 version, OPC device driver has been redesigned to improve data fetching capabilities and increase performance:
  • Timestamp and Quality. We've incorporated the OPC server timestamp and quality item information right into device settings. Now item timestamp and quality can be easily obtained from a variable value. They become a part of a variable history, too.
  • Asynchronous IO. Another significant improvement is OPC asynchronous IO mode support. By using this mode, a device will receive variable updates asynchronously, not by polling a server.
  • Manual Tags. This feature is a rescue with legacy OPC servers that do not support item browsing. Simply add desired item IDs to the ‘Manual Items’ device property and these items will be directly requested from the device upon each synchronization.
  • Native OPC DA/HDA/AE Client:
  • To keep AggreGate crossplatform and provide access to full OPC stack, including DA/HDA/AE, a native AggreGate OPC Client was designed. The Client is a standalone software application that installs on a Windows machine and acts as an AggreGate Agent communicating with a server running under Windows, Linux or Mac OS. It's basically as a gateway between an AggreGate server and an OPC server. It automatically connects to AggreGate server and is represented as an ordinary device. Device settings and events match OPC tags and events, the rest of the OPC HDA/AE functionalities are available via device functions. Thanks to local OPC server connectivity, system administrators can avoid headache with setting up DCOM in distributed environments.
  • OPC DA Server:
  • We released a brand new OLE for Process Control (OPC) server that enables any OPC clients to get data from AggreGate’s unified data model, as well as any underlying devices and data sources. Any OPC-compliant application, such as a process historian, an ERP/MES system or a reporting tool, can read or write to all data points that are available within AggreGate Server.
  • Variable Charts:
  • Following our customers' needs, AggreGate platform delivers all-in-one chart widget for trending dynamic processes. You can use the ordinary Create Chart wizard for a variable and select Advanced toolbar option. Finally, you will get a redesigned chart widget for viewing real-time and/or historical data, including series management support.
  • Graphs:
  • Presented in the previous release, managing layouts is improved in AggreGate 5.3. Now it is possible to have several layouts saved and switch between them when displaying topology. Also, we've enriched topology editing abilities with add/remove links and nodes feature. Another innovation is a filtering mechanism that helps quickly identify and locate nodes in a sophisticated layout. All these facilities allow operators to easily correct and update automatically-generated network topology graphs.
  • Popup Widgets:
  • AggreGate widgets from now on support a popup windows mechanism. There is no need to switch between multiple widgets anymore. Just customize any widget to be shown as a popup window and it will be displayed upon other widget on any event you want. It is especially useful in Network Topology Maps where you can customize popup widgets for every single node in topology.
  • Range Slider:
  • AggreGate UI component line gets a Range Slider, allowing a user to select numerical or date range by sliding knobs within a bounded interval. In other words, it is simply a two-knob slider, a very convenient and intuitive component for visualizing a date range, for example of a chart.
  • HTML-snippet:
  • One more way to integrate third-party systems into AggreGate is to use an HTML-snippet dashboard element. It is a dashboard frame displaying contents of a web page specified by URL.
  • Centralized Firmware Management:
  • Firmware and configuration upgrades became handy with AggreGate 5.3 release. Enhanced scheduler capabilities make it easy to plan distribution for night hours and keep your services almost intact. You should just select devices to upgrade, configure an upgrade operation for this group of devices, and then schedule the process. Planned job status will give you comprehensive information of the upgrade process for each of the devices.
  • REST API:
  • Easier integration with third-party systems is now possible by using the server REST API. It enables AggreGate users to exchange generic data between different systems. Technically, it provides methods for getting and setting values of context variables and calling context functions. All data sending is XML-encoded and passed over secure HTTP connections.
  • New Drivers:
  • Message stream allows you to monitor any ASCII data coming via a Serial port or a TCP/UDP connection.
  • IPMI provides access to devices supporting IPMI protocol. It can monitor FRU and sensors, control Event Log, execute chassis functions.
  • CWMP gives the possibility to remotely manage and configure end-user devices (called customer-premises equipment, CPE), such as modems, routers, VoIP phones, etc. With this driver installed, AggreGate implements an Auto Configuration Server (ACS) and controls devices via a bidirectional SOAP/HTTP-based protocol according to the TR-69 specification.
  • Web Transaction allows to monitor complex web applications by automatically replaying recorded real user behaviour in a real web browser. The driver provides web application operability and performance metrics.

New in AggreGate 5.31.06 (Oct 18, 2016)

  • Enhancing GIS capabilities: Map UI component is now multi-layered and supports different types of source geo data. New Geo-fence objects together with Geo-fence live editor bring more power and ease to deal with geo positioning and geo zones.
  • Better OPC connectivity: OPC driver received asynchronous IO, manual tag support, better timestamp and quality handling, and it also became faster. Along with on-board OPC DA connectivity, AggreGate got support for OPC AE and HDA using standalone AggreGate OPC Agent.
  • Providing richer integration capabilities: New AggreGate OPC Server allows users to access AggreGate unified data model over OPC DA. AggreGate integration means are extended by the server REST API providing read, write variable access, as well as function invocation.
  • Improving usability: Dashboard Designer is another step to make AggreGate tuning more visual and intuitive: just edit any dashboard on-the-fly. Improved variable charts became informative, elegant and responsive.
  • Workflows:
  • AggreGate 5.3 features a Workflow module. Workflows are user-defined actions that combine server-side data processing operations and operator interaction steps (UI Procedures). The Workflow module helps define those actions by adding various steps that may depend on each other and benefit from conditional branching.
  • Workflows are ideal for configuring various incident resolution and debriefing patterns that will be interactively launched upon various alerts. Thus, workflows will be crucial for any AggreGate-based umbrella monitoring and management project, be it IT, automation or security infrastructure management.
  • Maps and Geo-fences:
  • This release gets significant GIS improvements: redesigned Map component, special Geo-fence objects and a set of tools to deal with spacial data.
  • Map Component:
  • We've drastically reworked the map UI component. The new layered structure brings a lot more features and flexibility. Now you can have several map layers, reorder them, make them shown or hidden. There are three layer types available:
  • Context Mask for displaying location data delivered from devices. Allows AggreGate users to visualize Network Topology, GPS tracks and similar.
  • Geo-fence Mask renders geo-fence objects like points, paths and polygons. Geo-fence objects are presented by appropriate system contexts that provide geolocation data (points) and processing functions.
  • Node Table is the most flexible layer type that accepts dynamic data table as geolocation source. It is intended for displaying non-standard objects like data imported from external GIS systems.
  • Each layer can be customized. Special expressions are used to define object visual representation: color, image, labels, and so on. Events like Node Click, Node Hover allows you to bind geo-informational data with the domain data, for example it is possible to track fleet positions on the map and have detailed information about the particular vehicle speed, fuel level, current driver available in a panel when pointing or clicking a mouse on a vehicle icon.
  • Geo-fences:
  • Meet a new AggreGate object type - Geo-fence. Each instance of a Geo-fence represents a set of points, path or area positioned on the globe. It is easy to create and edit instances visually via special Geo-fence Editor widget. Geo-fences are widely used by the Map UI component to display and interact with GIS data. Besides, Geo-fences provide several functions to determine inclusion, intersection and distance between geo-objects.
  • Dashboard Designer:
  • Presenting you a mint dashboard designer. It makes you forget an old non-intuitive way of configuring dashboards and replaces it with on-the-fly visual building end editing. From now on you can open dashboards in a thick client and edit live: drag-n-drop elements, change their location, size and other options.
  • Uplevel OPC Integration:
  • AggreGate became more friendly to OPC - a widely used industrial standard. Server connectivity were enhanced by improving OPC driver and presenting a new Native OPC Agent. AggreGate integration abilities were extended due to a new OPC server.
  • OPC Driver:
  • We continue improving AggreGate for better compliance with OPC standards. In the 5.3 version, OPC device driver has been redesigned to improve data fetching capabilities and increase performance:
  • Timestamp and Quality. We've incorporated the OPC server timestamp and quality item information right into device settings. Now item timestamp and quality can be easily obtained from a variable value. They become a part of a variable history, too.
  • Asynchronous IO. Another significant improvement is OPC asynchronous IO mode support. By using this mode, a device will receive variable updates asynchronously, not by polling a server.
  • Manual Tags. This feature is a rescue with legacy OPC servers that do not support item browsing. Simply add desired item IDs to the ‘Manual Items’ device property and these items will be directly requested from the device upon each synchronization.
  • Native OPC DA/HDA/AE Client:
  • To keep AggreGate crossplatform and provide access to full OPC stack, including DA/HDA/AE, a native AggreGate OPC Client was designed. The Client is a standalone software application that installs on a Windows machine and acts as an AggreGate Agent communicating with a server running under Windows, Linux or Mac OS. It's basically as a gateway between an AggreGate server and an OPC server. It automatically connects to AggreGate server and is represented as an ordinary device. Device settings and events match OPC tags and events, the rest of the OPC HDA/AE functionalities are available via device functions. Thanks to local OPC server connectivity, system administrators can avoid headache with setting up DCOM in distributed environments.
  • OPC DA Server:
  • We released a brand new OLE for Process Control (OPC) server that enables any OPC clients to get data from AggreGate’s unified data model, as well as any underlying devices and data sources. Any OPC-compliant application, such as a process historian, an ERP/MES system or a reporting tool, can read or write to all data points that are available within AggreGate Server.
  • Variable Charts:
  • Following our customers' needs, AggreGate platform delivers all-in-one chart widget for trending dynamic processes. You can use the ordinary Create Chart wizard for a variable and select Advanced toolbar option. Finally, you will get a redesigned chart widget for viewing real-time and/or historical data, including series management support.
  • Graphs:
  • Presented in the previous release, managing layouts is improved in AggreGate 5.3. Now it is possible to have several layouts saved and switch between them when displaying topology. Also, we've enriched topology editing abilities with add/remove links and nodes feature. Another innovation is a filtering mechanism that helps quickly identify and locate nodes in a sophisticated layout. All these facilities allow operators to easily correct and update automatically-generated network topology graphs.
  • Popup Widgets:
  • AggreGate widgets from now on support a popup windows mechanism. There is no need to switch between multiple widgets anymore. Just customize any widget to be shown as a popup window and it will be displayed upon other widget on any event you want. It is especially useful in Network Topology Maps where you can customize popup widgets for every single node in topology.
  • Range Slider:
  • AggreGate UI component line gets a Range Slider, allowing a user to select numerical or date range by sliding knobs within a bounded interval. In other words, it is simply a two-knob slider, a very convenient and intuitive component for visualizing a date range, for example of a chart.
  • HTML-snippet:
  • One more way to integrate third-party systems into AggreGate is to use an HTML-snippet dashboard element. It is a dashboard frame displaying contents of a web page specified by URL.
  • Centralized Firmware Management:
  • Firmware and configuration upgrades became handy with AggreGate 5.3 release. Enhanced scheduler capabilities make it easy to plan distribution for night hours and keep your services almost intact. You should just select devices to upgrade, configure an upgrade operation for this group of devices, and then schedule the process. Planned job status will give you comprehensive information of the upgrade process for each of the devices.
  • REST API:
  • Easier integration with third-party systems is now possible by using the server REST API. It enables AggreGate users to exchange generic data between different systems. Technically, it provides methods for getting and setting values of context variables and calling context functions. All data sending is XML-encoded and passed over secure HTTP connections.
  • New Drivers:
  • Message stream allows you to monitor any ASCII data coming via a Serial port or a TCP/UDP connection.
  • IPMI provides access to devices supporting IPMI protocol. It can monitor FRU and sensors, control Event Log, execute chassis functions.
  • CWMP gives the possibility to remotely manage and configure end-user devices (called customer-premises equipment, CPE), such as modems, routers, VoIP phones, etc. With this driver installed, AggreGate implements an Auto Configuration Server (ACS) and controls devices via a bidirectional SOAP/HTTP-based protocol according to the TR-69 specification.
  • Web Transaction allows to monitor complex web applications by automatically replaying recorded real user behaviour in a real web browser. The driver provides web application operability and performance metrics.

New in AggreGate 5.20.05 EAP (Jun 10, 2015)

  • HTML5-based web interface

New in AggreGate 4.50.00 (Nov 16, 2011)

  • Using dynamic vector images on device maps and HMIs

New in AggreGate 4.42.00 (Apr 14, 2011)

  • Google Maps integration.

New in AggreGate 4.34.00 (Feb 26, 2010)

  • Open-source APIs for Java and .NET.
  • Extension packs for network management, SCADA/HMI, access control, time&attendance, and building automation.