The Leaders and Innovators in Industrial IoT Edge Computing: FogHorn

FogHorn is a leading developer of “edge intelligence” software for industrial and commercial IoT applications. FogHorn’s software platform brings the power of machine learning and advanced analytics to the on-premise edge environment enabling a new class of applications for advanced monitoring and diagnostics, asset performance optimization, operational intelligence and predictive maintenance use cases.

FogHorn’s solutions are ideally suited for OEMs, systems integrators and end customers in vertical markets such as manufacturing, power, and water, oil and gas, mining, transportation, healthcare, retail, as well as Smart Grid, Smart City, and Smart Car applications.

Bringing the power of big data to the edge

FogHorn is leading in the rapidly emerging domain of “intelligence at the edge” or what many refer to as “fog computing.” FogHorn’s breakthrough edge intelligence platform is a critical element in bringing the power of big data and real-time stream processing to onsite locations for industrial customers and for use cases in markets such as manufacturing, oil and gas, power and water, renewable energy, mining, transportation, healthcare, smart grid and more.

With increasing demands for reliability, security, data privacy, real-time analytics and rapid application development, many industrial use cases are becoming increasingly dependent on FogHorn’s unique model of edge intelligence. FogHorn’s solution enables high-performance edge processing, optimized analytics, and heterogeneous applications to be hosted as close as possible to the control systems and physical sensor infrastructure that pervade the industrial world. This solution effectively enables deriving intelligence at the edge for closed-loop device optimization.

It’s extremely small footprint software platform is purpose-built to deliver the power of real-time industrial grade analytics to resource-constrained edge devices such as PLCs, gateways and industrial PCs.

FogHorn’s technology has been embraced by the world’s leading Industrial Internet innovators as well as major players in cloud computing, systems integration, and high-performance edge gateways.

FogHorn Technology Platform

FogHorn provides an efficient and highly scalable edge analytics platform that enables real-time, on-site stream processing of sensor data from industrial machines.

Most existing “edge” solutions support ingesting of sensor data into a local storage repository with the option to publish the unprocessed data to a cloud environment for offline analysis. They essentially provide a “store-and-forward” or some form of basic filtering capabilities. However many industrial environments and devices lack Internet connectivity rendering this solution unusable. But even with Internet connectivity, the sheer amount of data generated could easily exceed available bandwidth or be too cost prohibitive to send to the cloud. In addition, by the time data is uploaded to the cloud, processed in the data center, and the results transferred back to the edge, it may be too late to take any action.

The FogHorn solution addresses this exact pain point by providing a complete edge solution consisting of a highly miniaturized complex event processing (CEP) engine, also known as an analytics engine and machine learning (ML) capability to help derive real-time insights right at the edge. A powerful and expressive domain specific language (DSL) is also provided to define failure conditions and to detect interesting complex events on the multitude of the incoming sensor streams of data.

The output from these expressions can be used to directly prevent costly machine failures or downtime. They can also be fed into appropriate ML algorithms to enhance detection and prediction of anomalies or failure conditions. Overall, FogHorn’s technology will improve the overall efficiency and safety of industrial operations and processes in real time.

FogHorn Differentiators

Tiny Footprint

FogHorn platform packs a lot of power into an exceptionally small footprint including a CEP engine, real-time analytics, and machine learning! And embracing this paradigm shift to small-computer and local-processing on constrained devices, FogHorn’s Lightning platform runs seamlessly on the industry’s broadest spectrum of industrial devices and processors.

OT (Operational Technology) Friendly

FogHorn technology is specifically designed for OT personnel who need an effective way to express their desired process optimizations. This makes it a lot easier to capture and incorporate tribal knowledge gained from years of experience and translate it into meaningful analytics and insights into their machine operations FogHorn’s simple drag and drop GUI based utility makes it easy for OT operators without device programming skills to define analytics on the fly. The entire mental model of designing these expressions is based off PLC style operations.

On-Premise Centric and Cloud Agnostic

The FogHorn Lightning ML software platform can run entirely on-premise or connect to any private cloud or public cloud environment. This gives customers maximum flexibility in selecting the best deployment model in terms of IT infrastructure, security policy and cost.

Machine Learning at the Edge

FogHorn’s small footprint platform delivers Machine Learning at the Edge through its flagship product EdgeML. It supports executing customer proprietary domain ML models, provides out of box industry standard algorithms and facilitates a seamless plug-in into live data streams.

Testimony by Intel

“Both the promise and challenge of IIoT lie in the ability to convert sensor data to actionable insights that improve customers’ operating efficiency and generate new sources of business value. FogHorn’s edge analytics and machine learning technology will be a critical factor in enabling those operating efficiencies and delivering that business value.”

• Jonathan Ballon, Vice President, And General Manager, Intel’s IoT Group

Howdy Chief!

David C. King, CEO: Prior to joining FogHorn, David co-founded AirTight Networks, Inc., a technology leader in secure cloud-managed Wi-Fi, where he served as Chairman and Chief Executive Officer from 2004-2015. Prior to AirTight, he served as Chairman, President and Chief Executive Officer of Proxim Inc., a pioneer in WLANs and the first publicly traded Wi-Fi company, from 1993-2002. Before Proxim, David served as Vice President of Marketing and Customer Service for Vitalink Communications Corp., an early leader in wide area network from December 1990 to November 1992. Prior to Vitalink, he was a senior manager and a practice leader in both the high technology and healthcare practices of McKinsey & Company from 1985 to 1990.

In addition to his board positions at AirTight and Proxim, he served on the boards of Netopia, Inc., Cayman Systems and Mobilestar Inc., all pioneering companies in the broadband access and networking industries. David holds a BA in Economics, as well as MBA and JD degrees, all from Harvard University.