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Info
Google IoT Core was retired in summer or 2023. Clearblade IoT Core provides a drop-in replacement for the MQTT Server endpoint. As a result, Clearblade IoT Core works with Cirrus Link's Google Cloud Injector and the Google Cloud. More information is available here: https://iot.clearblade.com.

Prerequisites

Ignition with Google Cloud Injector Module installed
- Review the Cirrus Link Module Installation documentation for installation details.
Ignition Designer installed
- Review the Inductive Automation documentation for Launching Designer against the Ignition gateway
An existing Clearblade IoT Core

Prerequisites

Knowledge of Ignition and Module installation process: Cloud and MQTT Module Installation.
An existing Google Cloud Platform account with a Project, IoT Core registry, credentials, and device created.
- Documentation on getting started with the Google Cloud Clearblade IoT Core can be found found here

Summary

This tutorial will provide step-by-step instructions for the following:

Installing the Ignition Gateway Industrial Application Platform with the Google Cloud Injector Module
Configuring the Google Cloud Injector Module to connect to an existing Cloud Clearblade IoT Core
Publishing live Tag data and events to the connected Cloud Clearblade IoT Core

Upon completion of this module you will have an Ignition Gateway connected and publishing live Tag data to data to a Cloud Clearblade IoT Core.

Architecture

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Tutorial

Step 1:

...

Ignition is an Industrial Application Platform that can be used to create SCADA and HMI solutions. A fully functional Ignition system can be downloaded and run in trial mode. Using Ignition as a tool in this way, we can install the Sparkplug MQTT Modules and observe everything working.

Go to the Inductive Automation download page and download the desired Ignition installer for Windows, Linux or MacOS;
https://inductiveautomation.com/downloads/ignition

Once the Ignition installer has been downloaded, follow the instructions provided by Inductive Automation to install and startup Ignition.

Step 2: Download and Install the Cirrus Link Google Cloud Injector Module

Go to the Inductive Automation download page again and scroll down to the Third Party modules section. Find the Cirrus Link modules section and download the Google Cloud Injector Module.
https://inductiveautomation.com/downloads/ignition. The download links should look similar to what is shown below.

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Step 3: Configure the MQTT Modules

Once you have Ignition installed and running, and the Google Cloud Injector module downloaded, browse to the Ignition Gateway console (e.g. http://localhost:8088). Login using the default credentials of admin/password. Click on Configuration tab and then click on the Modules tab on the left side of the page. Scroll to the bottom of the Modules section and click on the Download/Upgrade modules button. When prompted, select the Google Cloud Injector module from the file browser and install it. When complete, the Ignition Gateway Web UI module section should look similar to what is shown below:

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Select the "Google Cloud Injector" → "Settings" link on the lower left of the page to navigate to the Google Cloud Injector Module's configuration page. A detailed explanation of each configuration tab can be found here. For this tutorial, we will only be adding a new Cloud IoT Core Setting.

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Click on the "Create new Cloud IoT Core Setting..." link to bring up the following configuration form:

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...

Configure the Google Cloud Injector Module

Once you have Ignition and the Google Cloud Injector Module installed and running we can setup the configuration to connect to your existing Clearblade IoT Core.

Tip
Review the Google Cloud Injector Module configuration guide for more details on each tab

Navigate to the Google Cloud Injector Modules configuration section from the left side bar in the Ignition Gateway and select the Clearblade IoT Core tab.

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Set the following parameters:

Setting Name
- This can be any unique identifier. For this tutorial we will use "TestSetting".

...

GCP Project ID

...

- This is the ID of the project that was created with the Google Cloud Platform account.

...

GCP Cloud Region

...

- This should be obtained from the Cloud IoT Core that was created.
GCP Registry ID
- This should be obtained from the Cloud IoT Core that was created.
GCP Device ID
- This should be obtained from the Cloud IoT Core that was created.
Private Key File
- The Private Key File must be in PKCS8 DER format. See Google's documentation here on how to convert a PEM to PKCS8 DER format.
Algorithm
- Algorithm type used by the key file. Options are RS256 and ES256

Click on "Create New Cloud IoT Core Setting" to save create the new configuration setting.

Now the Google Cloud Injector module is connected to the Cloud IoT Core and ready , we have to determine if there are are changes needed to the Tag Agent tab to be able to push Tag data.

If you click on the "Tag Agents" tab you will see that out-of-the-box the Google Cloud Injector module will have one default Tag Agent defined. For this tutorial we will not need to make any configuration changes to the Tag Agents.

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The Default Tag Agent will monitor tags that are in the "Edge Nodes" folder of the "default" Tag Provider. In the next step we go into more detail about the tags in this folder.

Step 4: Use Ignition Designer to Examine the Initial Tag Structure

With Ignition running and the Google Cloud Injector module loaded now we can open the Ignition Designer to create/observe the initial Tag structure. Regardless of the OS Ignition is running on, there is a “Get Designer” button on the Ignition Gateway Console. From here you can launch your Designer on any machine. The default credentials for the designer are the same as the Gateway Console, admin/password. Once you have logged into the Designer enter a new project name and open the project. The project name that we used for this tutorial is simply called “Tutorial1”.

After Designer opens, you will see the default Designer screen as shown below.

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With the Google Cloud Injector module installed in Ignition, a new folder is created under the "All Providers" folder and is called “Google Cloud Injector”. This folder will contain both information tags about the module's version and state, as well as control tags for refreshing the module and Tag Agents.

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already have Ignition tags defined, for example from the Ignition OPC UA Server, then depending on the depth of your tag tree you may need to configure the Sparkplug Settings.

Tip

Review the Cloud Injector Tag Agents and Tag Trees document which describes how Cloud Injector Agent configurations interact with Ignition tag trees to push messages and tag change events to the cloud service. It explains how tags get identified to be pushed as well as what specific 'topics' will be included with the messages. It also goes over some example configurations to show how the system will behave in different scenarios.

Once the Tag Agent is setup as needed, you can jump to Step 3: Publishing data.

If you do not have Ignition tags defined, that will be done in the next step with a tag tree depth that requires no additional Sparkplug settings.

Step 2: Create tags to be published in Designer

Next, we need to create a folder structure where we will create a virtual Edge device and some tags to be published by the Google Cloud Injector module. When the Google Cloud Injector module is installed in Ignition, a an Edge Node folder is automatically created in the 'default' Ignition tag structure with the following path:

All Providers/default/Edge Nodes

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Step 5: Use Ignition Designer to Create New Tags

provider.

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Create a tree structure under this folder as shown below with some memory tags - this For this tutorial, right click on the Edge Nodes folder and create a new folder called Tutorial Group. Then right click on the Tutorial Group folder and create another new folder called Tutorial Edge Node. Finally, right click on the Tutorial Edge Node folder and create another new folder called Tutorial Device. This folder structure creates the same hierarchy that is described in the Sparkplug B specification of Group ID, Edge ID, and Device ID.

With this folder structure in place, now we can create some memory tags of various data types to publish. Right click on the Tutorial Device folder and select ’New Tag’/’Memory Tag’. In the tag editor change the Name of the tag to “Boolean001”, and change the Data Type to Boolean. Follow this same procedure for new memory tags called “Integer001” of type Integer, “Float001” of type Float, and “String001” of type String. The resulting folder structure should look as follows.

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Step 6: Use Ignition Designer to Publish Tag Data (Current Tag Values)

Tip
Refer to the Ignition Tag Browser and Creating Tags documentation for assistance in configuring Ignition tags

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Step 3: Publishing data

When the Google Cloud Injector module is installed in Ignition, a Google Cloud Injector tag provider is automatically created. This folder will contain both information tags about the module's version and state, as well as control tags for refreshing the module and Tag Agents.

Now that we have a folder structure with some tags we can refresh the Google Cloud Injector module. Make sure that the Ignition Designer has read/write communications turned on by selecting the Project/Comm Read/Write button highlighted in the image below.Image Removed

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Tip
Review the Inductive Designer Interface documentation for additional assistance on setting the project communication mode

To refresh the default Tag Agent with the folder structure we’ve created, open the folder "All Providers/Google Cloud Injector /Google Cloud Injector ControlControl" and click on the Refresh Boolean. Note the Boolean tag will not change to true. This is really a one-shot and as a result, the tag will not change to true. When this happens, the Tag Agent will scan the "Edge Nodes" folder and find the new Memory Tags that we have created, construct JSON payloads representing those tags with their current values and publish the payload to the Cloud IoT Core that we have configured.

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Note
The Boolean tag will not change to true. This is really a one-shot and as a result, the tag will not change to true.

Image RemovedThe Google Cloud Injector Tag Agent will publish two JSON payloads to the Cloud IoT Core. The format of these messages closely follows the Sparkplug B Specification's payload structure.

...

Code Block

title	First Payload

{
    "topic": {
        "namespace":  "spBv1.0",
        "groupId":  "Tutorial_Group",
        "edgeNodeId":  "Tutorial_Edge_Node"
    },
    "payload": {
        "timestamp": 1504739061495 1504739061495,
        "metrics": [
            {
                "name":  "bdSeq",
                "timestamp": 1504739061495 1504739061495,
                "dataType":  "Int64",
                "value": 0
      }
     0
      }
    ],
        "seq": 0 0
    }
}

The second payload represents the Device and will contain the following:

...

Code Block

title	Second Payload

{
    "topic": {
        "namespace":  "spBv1.0",
        "groupId":  "Tutorial_Group",
        "edgeNodeId":  "Tutorial_Edge_Node",
        "deviceId":  "Tutorial Device"
    },
    "payload": {
        "timestamp": 1504739061501 1504739061501,
        "metrics": [
            {
                "name":  "Boolean001",
                "timestamp": 1504739061546 1504739061546,
                "dataType":  "Boolean",
                "properties": {
                    "Quality": {
                        "type":  "Int32",
                        "value": 192
          }
        },
         192
          }
        },
        "value": true
       true
      },
            {
                "name":  "String001",
                "timestamp": 1504739061546 1504739061546,
                "dataType":  "String",
                "properties": {
                    "Quality": {
                        "type":  "Int32",
                        "value": 192
          }
        },
         192
          }
        },
        "value":  "onetwothree"
            },
            {
                "name":  "Integer001",
                "timestamp": 1504739061546 1504739061546,
                "dataType":  "Int32",
                "properties": {
                    "Quality": {
                        "type":  "Int32",
                        "value": 192
          }
        },
         192
          }
        },
        "value": 123
       123
      },
            {
                "name":  "Float001",
                "timestamp": 1504739061546 1504739061546,
                "dataType":  "Float",
                "properties": {
                    "Quality": {
                        "type":  "Int32",
                        "value": 192
          }
        },
         192
          }
        },
        "value": 1 1.23
            }
        ],
        "seq": 1 1
    }
}

Step

...

4: Use Ignition Designer to Publish Tag Data (Live Tag

...

Changes)

Now we can change the values of the new Memory Tags and generate payloads that contain the Tag change events.Click Click on the value of the "Boolean001" Memory Tag to change the value.

This will result in the following payload to be constructed to represent this Tag change event and pushed to the Cloud IoT Core:

Code Block

title	Change Event event Payload

{
    "topic": {
        "namespace": "spBv1.0",
        "groupId": "Tutorial_Group",
        "edgeNodeId": "Tutorial_Edge_Node",
        "deviceId": "Tutorial Device"
    },
    "payload": {
        "timestamp": 1504740884529,
        "metrics": [
            {
                "name": "Boolean001",
                "timestamp": 1504740883526,
                "dataType": "Boolean",
                "value": true
            }
        ],
        "seq": 2
    }
}

Step

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5: Google Cloud

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Platform Applications

It is beyond the scope of this tutorial to show how to design an application in Google Cloud Platform to handle the payloads as they are pushed in to the Cloud IoT Core. For additional information on developing applications to consume this data see https://cloud.google.com/iot-core/.

Additional Resources

Inductive Automation's Ignition download with free trial
- Current Ignition Release
Cirrus Link Solutions Modules for Ignition
- Ignition Strategic Partner Modules
Support questions
- Check out the Cirrus Link Forum: https://forum.cirrus-link.com/
- Contact support: support@cirrus-link.com
Sales questions
- Email: sales@cirrus-link.com
- Phone: +1 (844) 924-7787
About Cirrus Link
- https://www.cirrus-link.com/about-us/

Contents

Cirrus Link Resources

Inductive Resources

Versions Compared

Old Version 3

New Version Current

Key

Prerequisites

Prerequisites

Summary

Architecture

Tutorial

Step 1:

Step 2: Download and Install the Cirrus Link Google Cloud Injector Module

Step 3: Configure the MQTT Modules

Configure the Google Cloud Injector Module

Step 4: Use Ignition Designer to Examine the Initial Tag Structure

Step 2: Create tags to be published in Designer

Step 5: Use Ignition Designer to Create New Tags

Step 6: Use Ignition Designer to Publish Tag Data (Current Tag Values)

Step 3: Publishing data

Step

4: Use Ignition Designer to Publish Tag Data (Live Tag

Changes)

Step

5: Google Cloud

Platform Applications

Additional Resources