GIS (Geographic Information System)

A GIS system can be viewed as a database, which comprises all geometric elements of the geographical space with specific geometric accuracy together with information i. e. in tabular form which is related to geographic location. The GIS is associated by a set of tools, which do data management, processing, analysis and presentation of results for information and related geographic locations. The geographical space can be viewed as composed of overlaid planes of information over a wider geographical area and each plane has specific information or features [Hatzopoulos, 2002].

The different planes contain similar geographic features. For example, one plane has elevations, another plane can have the drainage features represented, while another can have the rainfall. Thematic maps are then created, using map algebra on plane information [Gorgan, 2010], [Petcu, 2007], [Pop, 2007].

All the features in GIS are viewed as objects which can further be used to build models. The simplest object is a point object than the complex/composed objects such as lines or areas rely on the point objects.

The up-to-date GIS technology can use data stored in warehouses or databases, accessing it through internet and running the GIS system every time, the specific datasets change. This is a feature usually used to have reliable real-time hydrological models for forecasting systems. Further developments on GIS technology is aimed at integrating object-oriented programming techniques, therefore ordering components into classes. An example of a component may be a line segment of a river and the data contained in such a class can represent coordinates, length values, profile dimensions or procedures for computing the river flow at a specific moment.

Water management could use GIS systems for basic data such as creating a national hydrology dataset which is permanently updated, but also for hydrologic derivatives which can be used together with satellite data and in situ information for dealing with prevention, management of water shortage or better organizing cities and rural areas.

IBM Water Management Platform

IBM Water Management Platform is a Big Data Cloud platform offered by IBM for implementation of solutions which can help end-users or organizations in several forms, regarding environmental or direct water problems. The set of features offered by the problem can be summarized in : provide situational awareness of operations integrate data from almost any kind of source (GIS, ERP-Enterprise Resource Planning, satellite, on site data-photo, video, numerical) form patterns and correlations, visualize graphically contextual relationships between systems run and monitor SOPs(Standard Operation Procedures) from dashboards no compatibility adjustments needed when adding or removing devices set up business rules for generating alerts in risky situations compare current and historical data to discover patterns or cause-effect relations

IBM Intelligent Water solutions offer multiple deployment models to provide options for cities of all sizes with varying levels of IT resources. Cities with robust IT capabilities or strong interests in behind-the-firewall implementation can deploy this solution in their own data centers. Alternatively, deploying IBM Intelligent Water on the IBM Smart-Cloud can help cities capitalize on the latest technology advances while controlling costs [IBM Intelligent Water, 2018].

Also, the personalized views are used by different so-called role-given-users for efficient analysis. The platform offers Citizen View (for water track usage in households), Operator View (for events, assets on geospatial maps), Supervisor View (for trends against KPI-key performance indicators) and Executive View (tracking and communicating KPI updates).

IBM Intelligent Water products are currently used in the Digital Delta system in the Netherlands which analyses data to forecast and prevent floods in the country, while the city of Dubuque (United States) uses the IBM platform for sustainable solutions in household water consumption, monitoring infrastructure leakages and reducing water waste.

TEMBOO platform - IoT Applications

Temboo is a software toolkit available directly from the web browser which enables anyone to access hard technologies like APIs (Application Programming Interfaces) and IoT(Intrnet of Things). Temboo users have access to data through public and private APIs and can develop their own IoT applications, starting from the services offered by the platform.

Developers would use what Temboo calls choreos to build together an application that is triggered from inputs registering on the IoT ARTIK device. Choreos are built out of APIs and act like microservices that perform one specific function that might be made available through an API. By splitting an APIs functionality into microservices using the choreos format, code snippets can be kept short and reduce memory requirements and processing power on the device itself, while also enabling more complex server-side processing to be undertaken in the cloud [Mark Boys, Temboo API Platform, 2018]. Hardware development kits, embedded chipsets, sensors and data from sensors, actuators and remote control of actuators, M2M communication frameworks, and gateway/edge architectures can be integrated into Temboo. It generates editable pieces of software code which is in a standardized form, partitioned in production-ready blocks, easy to implement with the aid of cloud services.

Temboo offers lightweight SDKs, libraries, and small-footprint agents for programming every component: MCUs (C SDK/Library, Java Embedded (in progress) ), SoCs/gateways (Python Agent with MCU, Java Agent with MCU, Python SDK, Java SDK), Mobile Applications (iOS SDK, Android SDK, Javascript SDK). For connecting devices to the cloud services, Temboo supports BlueTooth, Ethernet, WiFi and GSM (in progress).

Temboo can generate code for complete multi-device application scenarios, in which edge devices use a common IoT communications protocol to send Temboo requests through a gateway. The gateway handles all communication with Temboo, enabling local edge devices to interact with the huge range of web-based resources supported by Temboo [TEMBOO Homepage, 2018]. The protocols used for M2M (Machine to Machine) communications are MQTT, CoAP or HTTP.

Message Queuing Telemetry Transpor t(MQTT) is an standard for publishsubscribe-based messaging protocols. It works on top of the TCP/IP protocol and is used for connections with remote locations with constraints for network bandwidth [Hunkeler, 2008].

Constrained Application Protocol (CoAP) [Shelby, 2014] is a service layer protocol well-suited internet device, such as wireless sensor network nodes which are resource limited. This protocol enables nodes to communicate through Internet using similar protocols. It is also used with other mechanisms, like SMS on mobile communication networks.

A series of pre-build applications are provided which are demonstrated on a small scale but can be also used for large scale problem. One of those applications is a Water Management for monitoring and remotely controlling the water level in a tank. This includes a mobile alert send to the user in case of action needed to be taken on the water tank level.

RoboMQ

RoboMQ is a Message Queue as Service platform hosted on cloud and available as an Enterprise hosting option. This Software as a Service (SaaS) platform is an integrated message queue hub, analytics engine, management console, dashboard and monitoring & alerts; all managed and hosted in a secure, reliable and redundant infrastructure” [ROBOMQ Homepage, 2018].

The key features that the platform offers are:

Scalability(auto-scalable through any load balancing and scaling) 

Expandability (it can be integrated in application or other features/functions can be added to it) Reliability (messages are persistent and durable) 

Monitoring through dashboards, analytic tools and specific alerts 

Compatible with different protocols (MQTT, AMQP (Advanced Message Queueing Protocol), STOMP (Simple Text Oriented Messaging Protocol), HTTP/REST)

Support for multiple programming languages (all the libraries supporting the protocols above are supported by RoboMQ e.g Phyton, Java, .NET) –

Secured connections (supports SSL (secure socket layer) connection for all available protocols)

RoboMQ acts as a message broker, managing queues between a producer and a consumer. Given its expandability feature, it has been integrated in an IoT Analytics application which collects data from various sensors, sends it to the queues managed by RoboMQ. The data is redirection to a IoT listener which then writes in a specific real-time database. All the data can be monitored through dashboards, panel metrics and graphs in real-time.

RoboMQ provides M2M integration through an open standard based platform to connect devices and sensors to the back-end applications, systems or processes. The protocols supported by RoboMQ (MQTT, STOMP, AMQP) can run on very small footprint devices using one of the languages that are supported by the device OS and profile. Among the devices that can be used are: Raspberry Pi, Audrino, Beaglebone and mBed based platforms. These devices will have the role of producer, sending the data as messages through to the RoboMQ broker, while the consumer will be the RoboMq dashboard application.