Ignition Modules Extract EFM Data with MQTT to Share Value Across the Enterprise

29 January 2020 - Kansas City, KS - Cirrus Link today announced the availability of Electronic Flow Measurement (EFM) Modules for the Ignition platform by Inductive Automation; including the EFM Emerson ROC Module, EFM Export Module, and MQTT Recorder Module. EFM data gathered with proprietary protocols is difficult to share across the enterprise, but Cirrus Link allows customers to extract and normalize EFM data with the efficient, open standard MQTT protocol.

Cirrus Link EFM Modules provide the following benefits:

Retrieve SCADA and Record data faster and with less bandwidth
Store and forward data at the Edge to eliminate lost data from communications outages
Connect EFM data to Flow-Cal transaction queues and/or an SQL database
Collect guaranteed records and time-stamp data at the source
Set up alarms, events, configurations, and history records and create tables in Ignition
"EFM is the cash register for the oil and gas industry, measuring hydrocarbons to calculate production and revenue," said Arlen Nipper, President and CTO, Cirrus Link. "Industry flow devices gather EFM data but represent it differently in their proprietary protocols making extracting and sharing the data through the enterprise a challenge. We developed a range of EFM models to extract the data with MQTT to solve this problem."

The EFM Emerson ROC Module is a protocol driver for the Ignition OPC UA module, polling EFM data and making it available as tags within the OPC browser. Custom configurations can be created and quickly scaled across hundreds of deployed devices. The EFM Emerson ROC Module also polls and gathers alarm, event and quantitative transaction records (QTR) for transmission to the enterprise or flow calculation applications.

The EFM Export Module receives EFM information from flow computers via MQTT including alarms, events, configuration and QTR records. This data is passed and put in the proper format, and placed into transaction queues for Flow-Cal, the industry leading gas and liquid measurement software application.

The MQTT Recorder Module uses MQTT to take the flow computer data in PLCs and RTUs and publish it as an immutable record that automatically populates a table within a database. The Module can create tables for any record-formatted data in Ignition-supported databases, provides guaranteed records with hash-based message authentication code, and supports store and forward at the Edge.

"What Cirrus Link is doing differently is instead of using legacy protocols that trap valuable EFM data, they are using MQTT as a new standard that is more efficient and makes the data available to more applications," said Jerod Blocker, Operational Technology Manager, ARB Midstream. "Their modules are innovative and this development is key for the oil and gas industry as companies work to adopt IIoT and make better use of their data to make business decisions."

All Cirrus Link IIoT modules for the Ignition platform can be installed, removed, and upgraded without impacting operations or affecting the rest of the system.

For more information visit https://www.cirrus-link.com/electronic-flow-measurement/.

About Cirrus Link

Cirrus Link puts business data to work - faster and smarter. With over 30 years of SCADA and Telemetry experience and now moving into Industrial IoT and the Digital Transformation, Cirrus Link leadership knows the technology necessary to enable and effectively manage data assets for real-time controls and industrial applications. Cirrus Link solutions expose data to more applications and across the enterprise based on the efficient, open-standard MQTT protocol co-created by CTO Arlen Nipper. With Cirrus Link technology, customers enable on-time, real-time access to critical business information for smarter decision making.