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Operational Benefits

Managing systems with several thousands of devices requires excellent management software in the Operations Department. You can save lots of operational costs by using FourC Groovy Cloud System as your management backbone. See some examples of what we can provide as a standard solution below.

 

- Safe and atomic firmware and software updates on remote devices
The problem!

 

The problems of doing OS and other software updates on remote devices are well-known: The update made the application or even the device itself fail to boot. What do you do? Call for on-site support? What if the device is on a rig in the North Atlantic? 

 

Lack of safe updates makes the suppliers of software and the device operators very cautious about applying security and feature fixes and updates on remote devices. The result can be catastrophic in the long run when lots of devices are "in the wild" running old and potentially insecure applications. 

The solution!

 

With FourC Groovy Cloud Systems, you can safely upgrade at any time. We have solved the update problem by always having the option to revert to the exact previous version of the OS or an application in a few seconds, for whatever reason. 

 

You can even schedule an update to a specific time or based on the connectivity bandwidth of the device and let the system automatically revert if the new update is detected to have failed. 

- Full asset-management made simple
The problem!

 

Imagine managing thousands of devices. Where are they, what properties does each device have, what is the history of each device? It's a huge amount of data from various sources that needs to be organized and presented. 

The solution!

 

Asset management with device history, log, reports, positions and notes are fully handled by a FourC Groovy Cloud System. You can show all devices on a map in real time, or show the devices' history - position on maps and diagrams and information in logs. Beautiful, elegant and efficient asset management in one place, with full overview, all the time.

- Minimised data transfers
The problem!

 

Data transfer takes time and can be very expensive, especially on mobile networks. Performing application installations and updates might not be wise under all circumstances. 

The solution!

 

FourC Groovy Cloud Systems makes bandwidth management easy. We have developed several methods to minimize cost of data transfer to and from the device:

 

  • FourC system components can be assigned to bandwidth policies, making the component's behaviour bandwidth- and cost-adaptable

  • For all software updates, only the differences from the current to a new application are transferred on the air or over the wire. "No bandwidth waste" is guaranteed!

  • Policies can be used to do bulk transfers when the bandwidth speed or cost is at its lowest, e.g. in depots, at ports and harbours or at night, making sure data is never sent when it shouldn't be

- Smart device group management
The problem!

 

You have hundreds or even thousands of devices spread over a large area. Some of them share some properties and should be handled as a group. Others share some other property, but since they are already part of some group, you cannot add them to another group. All this means in-efficient, time-consuming manual management.

The solution!

 

The device grouping in a FourC Groovy Cloud System revolutionises asset management. Groups are freely definable and a device can be part of several groups. The group definition decides the group's properties. You can for instance have a group that defines the software that is or shall be installed on the devices in that group. Another group could be all devices that are on buses.

 

There are even parameterised auto-groups based on device position, architecture, on-line status, name or events.

 

Actions can be preformed on a group; a group can be shown on maps; configuration changes can be applied at a group level; applications can be installed to it, and so on.

- Ingenious device, LAN and peripherals monitoring
The problem!

 

Knowing the status of your system can be important for 24x7 systems. Because devices will fail, fans will wear out, temperatures will rise and disks will fill up. It goes without saying that in order to keep a distributed system up and running, device health needs to be monitored. 

The solution!

 

The FourC Groovy Device Platform includes a full range of monitoring systems to help you maximize system uptime.

 

  • Hardware monitoring: The FourC Groovy Device Platform includes sensor software and logic to monitor, report and act on irregularities and errors in the hardware device itself. It monitors fan status, CPU temperature and load, free disk and memory, all with history logs to help you identify possible problems.

  • Peripherals monitoring: You can also monitor the presence of directly connected devices on serial ports and USB and be notified instantly if a device is disconnected. 

  • LAN monitoring: You can even monitor presence of other network-connected devices on any LAN of the devices itself and be notified when any of these are disconnected or connected to the LAN.

 

We have even implemented artificial intelligence using case-based reasoning which can identify patterns in monitored data streams and can advise and preemptively act before failure even happens!

- Remote console control
The problem!

 

Consider any of these situations: 

 

  • Something unusual happens on a remote device; there is no display attached or there are no personell on site who actually can see the display. Finding the cause of the error could really be simplified by knowing the on-screen status

  • The device operator or end-user is getting an error message on-screen

  • The device operator or end-user cannot does not understand to use the device's user interface and needs explanation

  • 10 new and remotely located operators need operational education or guidance on their site

 

What do you do?

The solution!

 

The FourC Groovy Cloud System lets you take remote control of a device or even a group of devices. Simply select the device or the group and take full control over its screen, keyboard and mouse. It's as simple as that!

- Multi-homing, fail-over router built in
The problem!

 

Distributed devices often have several networking options. For management, it is essential to make best possible use of the network options on any location based on the carrier's cost and bandwidth. 

 

Choosing the best connection should be automatic.

The solution!

 

The FourC Groovy Device Platform automates this fully. It incorporates a WAN network selector module that always selects the best network carrier based on predefined policies and rules, saving cost and time for any transfer by any application present on the device.

 

The FourC Groovy Device Platform can even act as the WAN router for any unit on the device's LAN, making other routers redundant and providing its feature-rich networking facilities to all LAN devices. 

What do want to do now?

 

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