Ocean Data Systems: Enabling Automation with Real-Time Industrial Intelligence

Ocean Data Systems Ltd. (ODS) is a software development company which designs, develops and markets professional software for industrial automation. Founded in 2004, Ocean Data Systems has developed the Dream Report product – the edge technology world leading complete solution for programming-free and user-friendly and intuitive reporting. The product can collect and archive real-time data from equipment and automation systems as well as access existing historians, make online data analysis, automatically generates and e-distributes reports and enables their management over the web (internet and intranet). It also offers interactive dynamic web reporting from any web browser as well as from mobile devices.

Today Dream Report software product is sold and used in more than 48 countries worldwide. The company directly responds to the existing needs of automation markets such as chemical and pharmaceutical, oil & gas, building automation, manufacturing, water treatment, Energy, Transportation, and other vertical markets.

ODS offers a cutting-edge technology in its segment with a strong and experienced team having a solid background and experience in the automation market.

The Dream Report software is responsible for generating industrial reports and dashboards. The software is used by companies all around the world for accessing data from their various processes and then generating valuable analytical results so that they can operate more efficiently, reduce costs and eliminate risks.

Ocean Data Systems' mission is to enable any user to easily and efficiently generate their own reports and browser-based dashboards, regardless of the market or application that they are in. This automatically generated information becomes the basis for continuous improvement and also delivers the required documentation to meet their regulatory requirements.

The Innovative Leader

Alex Mazal is the Founder and CEO of Ocean Data Systems. Since the company's inception, Alex has provided unmatched technical leadership to bring Dream Report into the industry's number one solution for industrial report generation. Over the past few years, his leadership has helped expand Dream Report functionality to include interactive dashboards and most recently, Dream Report has included a variety of technologies to address the Internet of Things.

A Comprehensive Product Line

To address the IoT marketplace, a product needs to deliver a number of features and benefits. These include:

Connectivity to IoT Data Sources – Dream Report includes two of the most common IoT communication protocols to be able to acquire data from IoT devices. These protocols are OPC UA and MQTT.  These protocols enable Dream Report to securely and efficiently acquire data from Internet-based devices and data sources.  Dream Report also includes over 90 other communication interfaces that can be securely routed over Internet-based communications through the use of a special feature called the Remote Connectivity Server, enabling it to access data from virtually any vendor products or data stores.

Security – If the Dream Report is used in Internet-based applications, it delivers both Internet connectivity and a high degree of security to its users. Dream Report offers Internet and Intranet-based access through the use of common Browser technology. Being based on the latest technology, HTML5, access to Dream Report is available to both computers and mobile devices. Dream Report offers both internal and Windows Domain-based security that can be applied to information access to all users as well as configuration access to Dream Report administrators. Internet connectivity with Dream Report is managed through user-defined ports with encrypted communications, so IT departments can properly manage their firewalls and plan their architectures.

Cyber Security – The Dream Report browser-based portal has been tested for vulnerabilities by the USA Department of Homeland Security and is listed in their database of products.

IT Friendly – Internet and IoT based applications have a variety of other technical requirements – Deployment on Virtual technologies such as VMWare and HyperV, and the need for Version Management and Audit Trails. Dream Report offers these features to address very scalable applications with many users and administrators.

Disruption-Fueled IoT Industry

Alex believes Cloud Computing, Big Data Analytics, Artificial Intelligence (AI) and Automation are all segments of applications in the IoT application space. Cloud Computing defines where an application may reside or where the services will be performed. Big Data and AI are some of the newer areas being developed and gaining attention, but IoT is much more than that. It is also about distributed data sources and the basics of bringing that disparate data into valuable reports and dashboards to enable better operations, reductions in cost, improvements in reliability and agility. These are the primary benefits Dream Report delivers for the IoT market.

A Sustainable Shift to Innovation

Ocean Data Systems, with Dream Report, has been solving the problem of automated report generation all around the world, and in every application, one can conceive of. Dream Report is such a unique product, that many of the world's leading automation suppliers have partnered with have private labeled it as a product to be offered along with their portfolio of core competency products. "It is through the company's efforts, and those of its many partners that Dream Report has become number one in the industry.  With Ocean Data enhancements for IoT connectivity and Internet-based operations, Dream Report is poised to bring those benefits to the emerging IoT marketplace", Alex added.

Awards and Recognition

The most significant award in the industry is the Control Engineering Magazine "Engineers' Choice" award.  Dream Report has been recognized 4 times and has won the award in the previous two years in a row.

Winning Against Challenges

Alex feels the greatest challenge the company has faced was to engineer the Dream Report as a solution for all markets and for use with all data sources. This takes time and many iterations of design and development. Many companies have developed their own solutions, with limited connectivity, for their own customers. A targeted development such as that will not benefit from the best ideas and broad needs by all customers in all markets. Dream Report surpassed that critical mass several years ago and delivers more than any one company would design into their own product.

Customer environments have become broader and are encompassing solutions from an ever-wider selection of industrial products. Company consolidation and acquisitions bring with them entirely new automation architectures with other vendor products. Dream Report is uniquely oriented to addressing these broader applications – with many independent data sources. Now, with IoT enhancements, Dream Report is enabling its vast installed base of customers, and partners, to enhance their operations with IoT-based sensors and devices, combining that data with the reports and dashboards they have already been using.

The Future Roadmap

Alex said the future is now. Dream Report is and has been delivering Internet-based connectivity for some time now. "With our latest release, Dream Report version 5, we've enhanced Dream Report even further for IOT applications and will continue to do so.  The technical issues have been addressed and it is now up to the customers to imagine their path forward.  If they can dream it, Dream Report can do it."