Insights Hub FAQ

General

What is Insights Hub?

Insights Hub (formerly MindSphere) is the industrial IoT application suite that empowers you to generate actionable insights from assets and operational data, driving manufacturing excellence by improving operational efficiency and quality.

Insights Hub is part of Industrial Operations X. With Industrial Operations X, we are expanding the Siemens Xcelerator vision to include our portfolio of industrial operations software and industrial IoT. The Industrial Operations X portfolio helps our customers and industries to accelerate their production processes, making them adaptive, people-centric and holistically integrated. With this new approach to operations and smart manufacturing, we are confident you will be better equipped to face the ever-changing industry demands, business models and workforces.

Is there a free version of Insights Hub?

Yes. Get started at no cost with Insights Hub Start for Free. 

Learn more

How do I log in to Insights Hub the first time?

There are three ways to log in to Insights Hub for the first time: 

  1. Use the link from your Insights Hub welcome email
  2. If you know the URL of your environment, type it directly in your browser
  3. Go to Insights Hub and click the login button on the top right of the page (this method is only available to users with a standard IDP Webkey). You can log in with Webkey and see all the environments you have access to listed. Choose one.

How do other companies use Insights Hub?

Find a wide variety of use cases and success stories in our resources section.

What username and password do I use to access Insights Hub?

Your username and password depend on the identity provider (IDP) you use. There are several options for Identity Provider Access. Our Standard IDP provider is Webkey. Other federated IDP-authorized providers include Mendix ID and Siemens ID. If your Environment Admin uses the Custom IDP feature, log in with your familiar access window provided by your IDP Provider.

How can I get support?

Go to our Insights Hub Community for support. You may also contact our Support Center. Additional information and videos are also available on our Documentation site.

How do I create a Webkey?

Normally, you create a Webkey during the Start for Free registration process, and this can carry over to a paid account.

In commercial Insights Hub deployments, the welcome email guides you through the Webkey creation process. If you already own a Webkey account because you are using it for other Siemens Software, use your existing Webkey to access Insights Hub.

Do I have different deployment options?

Insights Hub public versions are available on Azure and AWS. We also offer a private version which is cloud dedicated (VPC: virtual private cloud) and privately administered (LPC: local private cloud). 

Summary of the differences between LPC and VPC
Insights Hub for Private Cloud (LPC): Companies must have their own data center and their own infrastructure services. They will need to install RedHat OpenShift or Rancher on top of their infrastructure. 

Insights Hub Cloud dedicated (VPC): Companies put Insights Hub on an already existing hyperscaler account like AWS or Azure. 

Can I install Insights Hub on my own PC or infrastructure?

Yes. You can also deploy Insights Hub in your Azure and AWS account or your own datacenter with our Insights Hub for Private Cloud (LPC: local private cloud).

On which infrastructure is Insights Hub running?

Currently the public version of Insights Hub runs on AWS and Azure.

What out-of-the-box solutions are available for my industry?

Depending on your use case, there are lots of out-of-the-box solutions and apps available. For more info, check out apps and solutions on our Documentation site. 

Who is my environment (tenant) admin?

Only your organization knows this. Users and their roles are only visible to the admin in your organization.

My country requires data to be within the same country. Does Insights Hub work in this scenario?

Yes. Choose the Insights Hub for Private Cloud (LPC: local private cloud) or the Insights Hub Cloud Dedicated (VPC: virtual private cloud) to ensure data policies meet the requirements of the respective country. Additionally, make sure that the infrastructure provider offers the required services. Please talk to our sales and operations team to verify this. 

If neither option works for you, please contact our sales team and they will work with you to find a solution.

Where does Insights Hub store the data?

All data is stored on AWS servers in Germany.

App development

Which programming languages can I use to develop an app for Insights Hub?

If you host your application using the Insights Hub hosting environment, based on Cloud Foundry, choose from the following languages: Java, Node.js, .Net Core, Python, PHP, Go, Ruby, staticfile, binary and Mendix. If you host the app in another infrastructure, you are free to choose the programming language. 

Learn more

 Can I program my apps with my own development environment (IDE) like Eclipse or BlueJ?

Yes, you can use your own IDE.

Where can I host my applications?

Host your applications either on the Insights Hub Cloud Foundry application runtime or on your own infrastructure. 

Where can I learn more about the application lifecycle?

Refer to the app development workflow.

Learn more

How can I use Insights Hub to manage my applications?

Manage your Insights Hub applications with Insights Hub Developer Cockpit, Operator Cockpit and Cloud Foundry CLI (command line interface). 

Can I program plugins for Insights Hub Monitor?

Yes. Insights Hub supports the development and integration of plugins into Insights Hub Monitor.

Learn more

Do I have to physically give my application binaries to customers in order to enable them to use my app?

No, Insights Hub focuses on multi-tenant capable applications, which means that the application runs only in your production environment and is only provisioned to your customers through the Insights Hub developer/operator functionality.

Are there examples I can use to try things out to see how the integration works?

Yes, take a look at Github, where you can check out some example code and other things.

Learn more

Are there standard building blocks to jumpstart my development, like visualizations/asset maps?

Yes, Insights Hub and Industrial IoT Web Components offer exactly that.

Are there learning paths that show me how the development with Mendix works?

Yes, the Mendix Academy offers several learning paths where this is explained in detail. 

Learn more on Mendix.com 

Connectivity

Can I use non-Siemens hardware and software to send data to Insights Hub?

Yes, you can use non-Siemens hardware and software that support standard communication protocols and develop a connectivity solution to send data to Insights Hub (Using MQTT, MindConnect API, MindConnect LIB and so on).

Besides these possibilities, many Siemens hardware devices and software can already connect easily to Insights Hub, using MindConnect Elements.

Learn more

Can I develop my own gateway?

Yes. Develop your hardware with our MindConnect Lib SDK with C Programming (see here) or the MindConnect API with any programming language you choose. Use an SDK of your choice and connect to Insights Hub with MindConnect MQTT, or use the MindConnect Software Agent (MCSA).

Can I use my own hardware as a gateway to Insights Hub?

Yes. Use your existing hardware and software using the Insights Hub Connectivity LIB SDK (see here) to create a gateway. 

You can also use the connectivity solution Insights Hub Software Agent in your hardware to connect and send data to Insights Hub (see here). It is available for Windows and also as a dockerized version.

Where can I find how-tos and best practices?

Find tutorials for onboarding devices within our documentation section.

Learn more

Which devices and machines can I connect to Insights Hub?

Insights Hub is agnostic to machines. There are a variety of hardware and software solutions available to connect your machines to Insights Hub. 

Learn more

Is bidirectional communication possible?

Yes. Use S7, OPC UA and MQTT protocols for bidirectional communication between Insights Hub and your on-site devices/machines using our MindConnect elements, such as MindConnect Nano and MindConnect IoT 2040. You can also use MindConnect MQTT for bidirectional communication using your hardware of choice.

How does Insights Hub ensure secure connectivity?

All communication to and from Insights Hub is secured with TLS v1.2.

Can I easily connect Siemens PLCs to Insights Hub?

MindConnect Software Agent, MindConnect Nano and MindConnect IoT 2040 easily connect a Siemens programmable logic controller (PLC) to Insights Hub. There are some PLCs, such as S7-1500 and S7-1200 that can be connected directly to Insights Hub. 

Can old PLCs also be connected?

This highly depends on the PLCs and is evaluated on a case-by-case basis. 

What kinds of data can be stored in Insights Hub?

Different kinds of data can be stored: timeseries data in our timeseries database, unstructured data in an integrated data lake, files in our file storage. Other data, such as log files and events can also be stored in Insights Hub.

What options are available to import data?

There are different ingest possibilities for hardware and software solutions; for example, an IoT database or Integrated Data Lake. 

How can I create a MindConnect Agent?

For information, see how-tos or open-source repositories on GitHub.

Learn more

How can I check if the MindConnect Software Agent is connected?

There are two ways to check your connection: 

  1. Within the system tool "Asset Manager," check the connection of every onboarded Agent/Device.  For detailed information see this document
  2. View incoming data using the application Insights Hub Monitor

Data integration and management

Can I connect and transfer data from my shop floor systems into Insights Hub?

Yes. Using MindConnect Integration, bring data from both cloud and on-premise based systems into Insights Hub for further contextualization, visualization and advanced analytics. 

Can I correlate data in Integrated Data Lake and timeseries data from machines?

Yes. With Data Contextualization ( formerly known as Semantic Data Interconnect (SDI)), it is possible to correlate data in an integrated data lake and timeseries data from machines providing context to your data.

What kind of data can I store in the integrated data lake?

Store any kind of data including structured, semi-structured and unstructured data in the integrated data lake. 

Can I use data in my S3 bucket?

Yes. Share your S3 resources with our Integrated Data Lake.

Can I use data in our AWS/Azure storage services in Insights Hub?

Yes. Bring data from AWS/Azure storage services into Insights Hub for contextualization, visualization and advanced analytics.

Can I reuse the integration configuration to connect Insights Hub to another similar system?

Yes. MindConnect Integration has a feature called recipes (configured integration flows) that can be reused for different instances of source and destination systems configured in a recipe.

Is it possible to process the files we have on our FTP server and then transfer them into Insights Hub?

Yes. MindConnect Integration reads files from your FTP server and then transfers them into Insights Hub for contextualization, visualization and advanced analytics.

Is it possible to schedule data upload to Insights Hub?

Yes. MindConnect Integration allows the scheduling of integration workflows. 

Can I monitor the status of workflow integration?

Yes. MindConnect Integration allows detailed monitoring of integration workflows giving details on their status.

What is Data Contextualization (formeraly Semantic Data Interconnect (SDI))?

Data Contextualization (formeraly Semantic Data Interconnect (SDI)) is a framework that enables users to provide a context to IoT, OT and IT data by establishing a semantic relationship between different sources.

A semantic layer is an abstraction of the technical implementation layer. It provides citizen data practitioners with an easy way to understand the data without worrying about the technical complexity and implementation of the underlying data source. The semantic layer presents the underlying data model using familiar domain definitions (dimensions, measures, hierarchies) and easy-to-understand terms.

Can I use correlated data (from multiple data sources) to create dashboards and reports?

Yes. Semantic Data Interconnect (SDI) allows you to query contextualized data and use the query response for further analysis.

Can I use correlated data (from multiple data sources) with our own analysis tools?

Yes. Query responses from Data Contextualization (formeraly Semantic Data Interconnect (SDI)) are available over REST interface and also available as files in the Integrated Data Lake.

Is there a way to easily create data flows in Insights Hub?

Yes. Multiple capabilities in Insights Hub, such as system integration, transformation, orchestration and contextualization, provide users with intuitive ways to design, execute and monitor data workflows. For example, Visual Flow Creator offers a graphical workflow editor that uses drag-and-drop to connect a collection of preconfigured and local nodes to perform a range of functions.

Can I make changes in timeseries data and then store the data back in Insights Hub?

Yes. With Insights Hub Monitor and Visual Flow Creator, it is possible to define and save KPIs on timeseries data in Insights Hub. 

Can I use tools from native service providers like AWS and Azure with an integrated data lake?

Yes. It is possible to use native tools from Amazon and Microsoft on top of Integrated Data Lake. Details are available in the Insights Hub documentation.

Learn More

Can I integrate the Insights Hub Integrated Data Lake with my on-premise data lakes?

Currently, there is no possibility of connecting on-premise data lakes with the Insights Hub Integrated Data Lake. However, it is possible to transfer data between Insights Hub and on-premise data lakes.

What are the file size limitations with respect to Integrated Data Lake?

The Integrated Data Lake supports uploading up to 5GB on AWS tenants and up to 256MB for Azure tenants. 

Can I bring my timeseries data to the Integrated Data Lake?

Yes. Import your timeseries data into the Integrated Data Lake using the timeseries import feature.