Sparkplug™ and the Sparkplug™ logo are trademarks of the Eclipse Foundation
Copyright © 10/11/19 Eclipse Foundation, Inc. https://www.eclipse.org/legal/efsl.php

co⚡e: Sparkplug™ MQTT edge and host

Information and guides
Sparkplug™ information | Preview how-to | Setup a test system with Ignition Primary Host | Add SparkplugB to an existing CODESYS project

This Page
Introduction | Sparkplug |Components | Development | Progress | Download | Requirements | Acknowledgements

avg reading time: 5m

Introduction

Imagine Industrial Internet of Things (IIoT) without the burden of re-inventing the wheel each time you change your installation. co⚡e: Sparkplug™ MQTT edge and host has been designed to provide you with a single point of truth at the Edge of
your installation. It offers you a modern, flexible, free and open way for any of your devices to exchange data using Sparkplug™ enhanced MQTT.

You will only need a MQTT broker and this library, instantiate, configure, connect, done!

Sparkplug

Designed by the co-author of MQTT, Arlen Nipper, Sparkplug™ is designed to fit "on top" of regular MQTT. In 1999, when MQTT was invented, it was originally meant for SCADA systems and left out all specifications on how topics and payloads should be structured and how devices should behave. This allowed regular MQTT to be used in different industries, but lacked any standard topic or dataformat.

Sparkplug™ now fills this gap and provides a vendor-neutral specification for the data formats, topic structures, state management, and how topologies should be structured in IIoT scenarios. This way, Sparkplug™ adds several smart features on top of regular MQTT, resulting in a "Sparkplug™ enhanced MQTT". A flexible architecture which allows you to auto-discover edge nodes, devices and their metrics (data & metadata) as devices and applications can be added and removed anytime without affecting the system as a whole. Report by Exception (RBE) saves bandwidth, memory and computational power on the producer and the consumers of data. Last but not least, your data can be delivered securely via the latest industry strength security specifications and with rich meta-data for added context.

Sparkplug™ benefits at a glance

A comparison between regular MQTT and Sparkplug™ enhanced MQTT.

• Advanced features subjected to the roadmap
  ** Sparkplug™ MQTT needs a fully compliant v3.1.1 broker.
  *** Cloud services like AWS IoT Core, Azure IoT Hub and Google Cloud Iot Core are not supported
  since they are not fully v3.1.1 compliant. Plenty of good alternatives are available.

Goal

Providing the CODESYS ecosystem a full specification compliant implementation of Sparkplug B Edge and Host nodes, which run on any sufficient capable CODESYS based controller. Since the code is fully IEC compliant, the library is portable over various fully IEC compliant brands and types of industrial controllers. Since stability is key, the code is continuously and rigorously tested.
In short, this solution aims to "marry" CODESYS with the Sparkplug™ MQTT protocol and further open up the vendor-independent CODESYS ecosystem with the IIoT market, thus fully exploiting the synergy between CODESYS and Sparkplug.

Last but not least

Our library has been built in open source, which should allow any experienced programmer to add/remove or alter parts of the code. It allows a for peer to peer code review and to expand on the existing code base. The Sparkplug™ specification has been released with open-source in mind, and we are delighted to share our library also! Of course the CODESYS runtime and MQTT library we utilize are not open-source.

Components

An overview of the components in this library are lined in red;

As seen the library allows for a mix with regular third party capable Sparkplug™ MQTT devices.
Details on the different components in the infrastructure:

• [Infrastructure] explains various node functions like Edge, Device, Primary Host, etc etc.
• [Security] explains the available security levels,
• [Messages] explains the various defined sparkplug messages and their payloads.

Tools & Development

Some tools we use to develop our library.

• Ignition Primary Host node
  We test our code against Ignition as Primary Host node and against the Sparkplug TCK when it is available.
  However, we are also in full preparation of developing a CODESYS variant of a Primary Host.
  To experience the full capabilities of Sparkplug in action, you can create your own free test system using this setup guide: Setup a test system with Ignition Primary Host. When our Primary Host node has finished, there will be no explicit need for Ignition anymore.

• TCK Toolkit
  We will test and verify our library against the TCK toolkit once it comes publicly available.

• co♻e: A unittest framework for CODESYS based systems
  We aim to cover the entire solution with pragmatic unit, integration and pov tests.

For more information see #co♻e

• MQTT Explorer
  MQTT.fx supports limited SparkplugB payload protobuffer decoding so it is a very good & flexible test client.

http://www.jensd.de/apps/mqttfx for more information
MQTT.fx is published under Apache License, Version 2.0.

• MQTT Client Library Usage
  Under the MIT license you are free to use the co⚡e: Sparkplug™ MQTT edge and host library. You are free to implement and use another MQTT client implementation. If you do, we urge you to implement a stable & 100% MQTT v3.1.1 capable library. However, in this project we will use the following library;

https://store.codesys.com/iiot-libraries-sl.html
Without a valid license, the software runs for 30 minutes in demo mode.

Progress

Timeframe

Milestones are set and progress is being made. You can read our progress blog here

Roadmap

This roadmap is subjected to change without prior notice. No liabilities shall be taken! Completed milestones are clearly marked.

v1.0.0.0 Basic version: Minimalistic Edge Node with TLS support

• MQTT Pub/Sub Support,
• Google Protobuffer payload encoding/decoding,
• Sparkplug™ for MQTT, responsible for publishing of Sparkplug™ Topics & Payloads,
• Metric Payload Support for: UINT8, UINT16, UINT32 UNIT64, INT8, INT16, etc,* [ ]
• Edge Node, responsible for publishing Node metrics,
• Edge Server Commands supported: NCMD Rebirth,
• Edge TLS Support,
• Debugging / Optimization/ Refactoring of Minimal Viable Product.
• Package v1.0.0.0 Released

v2.0.0.0 Standard version: Full-spec Edge, Device and Host implementation for CODESYS based industrial controllers

• All Datatype Metrics supported,
• Device support, acts as a digital representation of a physical device sending metrics,
• Receive Server Commands, setpoints etc, (xCMD),
• Bind multiple Devices to Edge,
• Machine to Machine communication,
• [x] Seperate libraries:
  • co⚡e: Sparkplug™ MQTT Stack - Contains a common basis for Edge and Host solutions,
  • co⚡e: Sparkplug™ MQTT Edge - Contains Edge and Device solution,
  • co⚡e: Sparkplug™ MQTT Host - Contains Primary Host solution,
  • co🔗e: A Linked List Solution.
• [x] Support for Metric Properties,
  • Read Only Property (mandatory available),
  • Any User Defined Property,
  • Ignition verified,
• [x] Support for Aliases,
  • Edge / Device send server xBIRTH alias support,
  • Edge / Device send server xDATA alias support,
  • Edge / Device recceive server xCMD alias support,
  • Ignition verified
• [ ] Template i.e. Edge / Device complex variables (nested structs) support,
  • Edge / Device send server xBIRTH Template support,
  • Edge / Device send server xDATA Template support,
  • Edge / Device recceive server xCMD Template support,
  • Ignition verified
• [x] HTTPS WebSockets support,
  • Proxy Settings support,
  • TLS Support (wss://... implemented but unverified),
  • Edge / Device ( ws://... verified),
  • Host
• [x] CODESYS based Primary Host Node implementation,
  • Server receive Edge / Device xBIRTH,
  • Server receive Edge / Device xDATA,
  • Server receive Edge / Device xCMD,
  • Server receive Edge / Device xDEATH & LWT -> Data becomes STALE
  • Server send Edge / device xCMD (DATA)
  • Strict enforcement of SEQ / BDSEQ check,
  • Server send Edge xCMD (REBIRTH),
  • Metric property support,
  • Alias Support,
  • Template Support.
• Unittesting and TDD - CI/CD integration to (auto)test the solution to maturity,
• Debugging / Optimization/ Refactoring of Standard package
• Release of Package v2.0.0.0

v3.0.0.0 Advanced version: Mature Edge, Device and Host implementation sporting user-friendly advanced features

• File Transfer,
• Historical data support,
• Primary Host Advanced Node Command support: dynamic discovery of supported commands from Edges / Devices,
• High Availability (HA) support,
• IoDriver,
• Debugging / Optimization/ Refactoring of Advanced package.
• Release of Package v3.0.0.0

Download

By downloading and using our software you abide by the MIT License
The co⚡e: Sparkplug™ MQTT edge and host library is MIT licensed and open sourced, but to run it for more than 30 minutes you will need to purchase an IIoT Libraries Bundle SL from the CODESYS Store, as we make use of the MQTT Client contained in it.

This .projectarchive contains the example and all libraries in a single download
For a list of full capabilities of the example see Roadmap
See Requirements for requirements

Or

Mandatory: Contains Linked List solution and contains the common basis for the Edge/Device and Primary Host solution. You need both these libs in order to run either Edge/Device or Primary Host.

Contains Edge/Device solution.

Contains the experimental Primary Host solution.

Contains the Example (you need all libs above to run it), a small guide on how to run the example can be found here Preview how-to

Requirements

NOTES

If you have no CODESYS licenses available, you can still enjoy Sparkplug with the following limitations in mind:

• Any unlicensed CODESYS runtime runs in a DEMO trial period for 2 hours, after that period you must restart the runtime,'
• Any unlicensed IIoT SL library runs in a DEMO trial period for 30 minutes, after that period you must re-download the runtime.
• On pricing read this FAQ [questions:#9]
• Because this library is MIT licensed you can exchange the licensed MQTT Client SL for any other flavour MQTT client as you see fit, but you must do so yourself. Ofcourse we are happy to provide you with our advice and / or some assistance.
• Ignition's SCADA as host is not necessarily needed since we implement a 'lightweight' primary host node, but if you wish you can always choose it;
• Ignition Enterprise SCADA runs in a DEMO trial period for 2 hours or choose to opt in for a FREE maker Edition.

Acknowledgements

We are passionate software developers who maintain co⚡e in spare time.
CODESYS fully supports us in our efforts by providing a free and open source platform for everybody to use.
Read more on #co5e

Project Members:

• aliazzz
• hermsen (admin)
• i-campbell (admin)

Sparkplug™ and the Sparkplug™ logo are trademarks of the Eclipse Foundation
Copyright © 10/11/19 Eclipse Foundation, Inc. https://www.eclipse.org/legal/efsl.php