Protocols

What the Integration Hub speaks

The Integration Hub is the Foundational Module that connects the Singularity to the systems your operation already runs. It reads from each source, normalizes what that source produces, tags every signal with where it came from, and writes back where a workflow requires it.

REST

The common language of current-generation business software over the web. Where a system offers it, it is usually the most direct way to reach that system’s data.

SOAP

The older structured request format that remains standard in long-lived enterprise systems. A great deal of manufacturing software was commissioned when SOAP was the default and has not moved since.

OPC-UA

The industrial standard for reading structured data out of control systems and machine controllers. It carries the values together with a description of what they mean.

MQTT

The lightweight publish-and-subscribe protocol built for constrained equipment and imperfect links. It is what carries site data outbound to the mode40 cloud broker, and it is also how many connected sensors report.

File-based protocols

Scheduled or dropped files. Where a system offers no live interface at all, a file it already produces is still a connection, and older plant systems and third-party reporting tools frequently have nothing else.

Which layer each one reaches

ERP

The main business software for orders, inventory, and finance. It holds what the operation is supposed to be making and for whom.

Plant control systems (SCADA)

The layer that monitors and controls equipment across a plant. It holds the running state of the process.

Machine controllers (PLCs)

The small computers running individual machines. They hold what a single machine is actually doing, at the resolution the machine reports it.

Connected sensors and IoT devices

Instrumentation added around the process rather than built into it. Frequently the only source for a measurement the original equipment never exposed.

Quality platforms

Where inspection results, specifications, and non-conformances live when they live outside the machines.

Scheduling tools

What is planned to run, in what order, on what. Often the system whose answer diverges soonest from the floor.

Third-party cloud apps

Everything else the operation depends on that is neither on the floor nor in the ERP.

Which of the five protocols a given connection uses is decided by the source system rather than by the platform. That is settled connection by connection during scoping, and it is the first thing worth checking when someone asks whether a particular system can be connected.

Site telemetry and business systems

Site telemetry and business systems reach the platform by different paths.

Site telemetry travels the path described in Connecting a site: floor equipment to Ignition on site over OPC UA, Modbus, or BACnet, then outbound MQTT to the mode40 cloud broker. That path is physical, it runs on your network, and it is where implementations spend their time.

Business systems are reached by the Integration Hub over whichever of the five protocols the system in question speaks. An ERP, a quality platform, and a scheduling tool are connected as sources rather than as telemetry, and none of them needs the site path.

Ignition is the only vendor product named in this portal. It is named because mode40’s own architecture places it on site as the recommended collection hub. No other product is listed as a tested integration, because listing one would imply a test and a permission that has not been verified. If you need to know whether a specific system has been connected before, ask during scoping and you will get a straight answer rather than a logo wall.

Schema normalization and source tagging

Every signal that arrives through the Hub is schema-normalized and source-tagged. Both happen once, at the Hub, before anything downstream sees the data.

Normalization means two systems describing the same thing in two different shapes arrive at the platform in one shape. Modules read one structure instead of learning the quirks of every source behind it.

Source tagging means every value carries the system that produced it. A module reading a number downstream can always establish where that number came from, which is what makes a disagreement between two systems something you can investigate rather than argue about.

Writing back to source

Reading is the common case, and a hub that only reads pushes work back onto people: someone reads a value on one screen and types it into another. The Integration Hub writes back to source where the workflow requires it, so a decision made in the platform can land in the system that has to act on it.

Which connections are write-enabled is a scoping decision made per connection, alongside the protocol and the direction of the data. Nothing is write-enabled by default because a write into a system of record is a change to that system of record.

Connection health monitoring

Every connection the Hub holds is watched, so a normalized, source-tagged stream cannot go stale without anyone noticing. A value that stopped updating still looks like a value.

Connection health covers what a flag means and how a site works back from one to the break that caused it.

Scoping a connection

Each connection is scoped on its own:

• Which system, and which protocol it already speaks.
• What data moves, and in which direction.
• What that data has to look like once it lands. For anything reporting off the floor, that means the data model agreed for that machine type.
• Who builds the bridge where one is needed between a business system and the platform. That is a build-or-buy choice, and buying it from mode40 is a custom development service at additional cost. Division of responsibilities covers it.

Integration work already done in-house stays in place. The Integration Hub is the wiring layer going forward. Integration Hub is the module reference, and integration implementation is how the work gets scoped.