By: Simon Holloway, Senior Analyst, Bloor Research Posted: 28th April 2008 Copyright Bloor Research © 2008

April 10th saw the GS1 UK annual conference, the second hosted at Leicester City Football Club. Malcolm Bowden, GS1 UK's Business Development Director, in his letter of welcome, said, "This annual event aims to show you (our members) how GS1 UK and the GS1 System of standards can improve the effectiveness and efficiency of your supply chain". In a series of three articles, I will share my understanding of what the speakers at the conference presented. In this, the third and final article, I will look at three speakers who talked about RFID matters.

The first speaker up was David Lyons, EPCglobal Business Manager of GS1 UK, who talked about EPCglobal and RFID industry developments. Lyon's key message to the audience was "It's all about the process now. RFID technology is proven and the standards required are in place. Regulations are now friendly. This situation has resulted in GS1 UK's main goal being to support UK RFID pilots". Lyons went to explain what UK industry was asking GS1 UK to concentrate its efforts on, these included:

• Full product lifecycle management
• Reusable tags
• Anti-counterfeiting solutions
• Asset tracking applications
• Anti-theft, border security
• Consumer focus
• Authentication
• Enhanced Tag security and privacy

GS1 UK has currently, in its pipeline of deliverables, ratification this quarter of 2008 of the High Frequency Generation 2 standard. In the slightly longer term it has been working on standards for active and semi-active tags, for temperature, shock and humidity information on sensors and for additional data on tags. All these are very necessary to keep the momentum of adoption of RFID still going.

Lyons then gave a brief overview of the EPCIS standard ratified a year ago (for more information see new Technical Report on RFID Middleware that I have just written). His next topic was to discuss the new RFID Centre that GS1 have set up. When this was first announced, I wrote a rather disparaging article. However, I have changed my mind; this centre is different to others that I talked about in the article. It is there to help users with proof-of-concepts and, for that, I commend the work done by GS1. Lyons concluded his talk by talking about the Metro project which is based completely on EPCglobal standards.

The second talk was from Andy Chadbourne, Marketing Manager of Intellident, on Practical return on investment from RFID. At the end of 2007, Intellident reached a major milestone with their 600 RFID project, and Chadbourne's talk was based on this level of experience. Chadbourne stated, "In our experience RFID projects fail for several reasons. Firstly it is just about replacing a barcode system; this involves simply swapped-out for RFID and not adding additional benefits. The second reason is when someone is trying to find a ‘home' for RFID; this is all about the business wanting RFID rather than needing it. The third (my comment - the worst) is where there is no business case and therefore it's a ‘toy' project or contains the previous points". In my view this 'no business case' scenario is the worst possible one to be met with. The final case Chadbourne put forward was when it is an internal implementation, when this sort of project is not core to the business skills.

The last point raised a few eyebrows in the audience but Chadbourne went on to explain that internal implementations fail because every company has its own specialities and in today's business many operations that are not core to the business are outsourced, such as security and courier services. RFID is not any different, but it is perceived as being so.

Chadbourne went on to describe Intellident's process for guaranteed ROI at the pilot stage. It starts with challenging why you are thinking of doing the project. This gets at the business issues that need to be tackled. The next step is to analyse if RFID is the correct solution. Chadbourne stressed that it was important at this stage to set defined metrics for later review. Then the project moves to the implementation stage. It is important to make sure that it's done well. The final stage is a review. Here one checks whether the project meet it's objectives that were set in the second stage. Chadbourne stated that if the review doesn't pass the pre-defined metrics then don't continue. The rest of the presentation looked at 2 of the projects Intellident had been involved to show how this ROI approach had been used.

The final talk was from Antony Allen of MSP on RFID alchemy—turning RFID data into gold. This was one of the cleverest and wittiest presentations I have seen for some time. Allen used the format of "Who wants to be a Millionaire?" to talk about who wants to save a million? Using the Millionaire question format, a ‘customer' was put through a series of questions that are faced in today's business world. These included:

• You need to reduce the number of short shipments to your customers
• What is the biggest cause of customer attrition
• What single factor contributes most to losing a bag (how apt after the debacle at terminal 5!!)

After each question, MSP explained how to find the answer to the question using BI data collected form RFID data and other business sources.

If we accept GS1 UK's premise that the technology is proven then the presentations from Intellident and MSP showed would-be users of RFID solutions how to go about the process and what could be achieved. My personal view is that GS1 are right, we have the technology; it is proven and the standards are in place. What the UK seems to be missing is the will to exploit it and this is made worse by the current financial crisis. However there is an old adage—you have to invest to accumulate. So, UK—the challenge is there. If we are to avoid debacles like Terminal 5, then we need to look at using proven technology with the right standards and ensure that all involved collaborate.

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By: Simon Holloway, Senior Analyst, Bloor Research Posted: 23rd April 2008 Copyright Bloor Research © 2008

Sirit and Reva Systems announced at the beginning of last week that METRO Group is deploying Sirit's INfinity 510 UHF RFID reader and Reva's TAP 331 appliance as part of the recently announced expanded rollout at METRO Group's Real brand hypermarket stores. The 200 Real locations will be equipped with Checkpoint portals powered by Sirit readers at the loading doors to track incoming goods. Reva's RFID network infrastructure will be installed at each location to provide device management and data processing.

The Sirit readers will be used to track pallets and cases as they arrive at the stores to improve supply chain efficiency. Reva's appliances will be used to manage the distributed network of RFID installations, to produce accurate data from each site, and to provide rapid operator feedback during logistics operations. This 200-location rollout builds on last October's successful implementation.

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By: Simon Holloway, Senior Analyst, Bloor Research Posted: 21st April 2008 Copyright Bloor Research © 2008

I have just picked up the news that Microsoft has unveiled its BizTalk RFID Mobile platform. A previously private beta version of the software was made available on April 18th 2008, and general availability is promised for later in 2008.

Since leaving Microsoft in 2006, I have known that this was on the cards. BizTalk RFID Mobile, when used with BizTalk Server 2006 R2, extends RFID support for business process to Windows CE and Windows Mobile 5.0 applications.

"Customers have asked for business process technologies that enable real-time decision-making to help drive measurable business results," said Burley Kawasaki, director of product management in the Connected Systems Division at Microsoft.

Microsoft also announced the BizTalk RFID Standards Pack for customers to integrate RFID technologies with Electronic Product Code standards, including Tag Data Translator and Low Level Reader Protocol.

Watch IT-analysis for further information.

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By: Simon Holloway, Senior Analyst, Bloor Research Posted: 18th April 2008 Copyright Bloor Research © 2008

Last Thursday, April 10th, saw the GS1 UK annual conference, the second hosted at Leicester City Football Club. Malcolm Bowden, GS1 UK's Business Development Director, in his letter of welcome said, "This annual event aims to show you (our members) how GS1 UK and the GS1 System of standards can improve the effectiveness and efficiency of your supply chain". In a series of three articles, I will share my understanding of what the speakers at the conference presented. In this, the first, I will look at the opening keynote session on sustainability strategies (developing green, lean and mean supply chains).

James Spittle, Chairman of GS1 UK, opened the session by introducing the topic of sustainability. He said, "Sustainability is rapidly becoming a critical business strategy. Investors and consumers are increasingly considering a company's record in protecting the environment as part of their buying decisions. Government, too, has set targets to recover 70% of consumer packaging waste by March 2010". He explained that there is growing evidence of sustainability strategies driving enterprise and shareholder value and delivering positive returns. Spittle then introduced each speaker in turn and put their presentation into perspective of this introduction.

The first speaker was Mathew Stephenson, a Partner at Deloitte. Stephenson is responsible for Deloitte's consulting practice in the South West of England and Wales, and leads Deloitte's relationship with GS1 UK. Sustainability strategies cover three intersecting areas of economic, social and environmental programmes. A wholly sustainable strategy company increases value to itself and its shareholders through the application of sustainability practice across the entire activity platform. Stephenson explained that winning businesses will be participants in sustainable, collaborative value chains built on lean principles. This meant that a company operated in a pull mode rather than a push one that was built up on lean principles. The company was likely to be sharing transportation and to have a policy of distribution centres close to the neighbourhood they served. The key enabler to achieve sustainability was collaboration and this was totally dependant on standards being in place to achieve the goals with ease. Stephenson explained that the drivers for sustainability were:

• Competitive advantage
• Cost reductions
• Risk management
• Investor pressure
• Regulation

In fact, nothing new. These are normal business pressures, but they now have green connotations. The typical areas of focus of companies implementing sustainability strategies were, in Stephenson's experience:

• Transport and distribution: Focuses on fewer and friendlier miles through investing in greener engine technology, investing in high cube vehicles and maximising internal and external fleet integration
• Green buildings: Looking at building new high-performing facilities which take into account all of today's construction industry green thinking
• Green IT: A new area to many people at the conference but one that is starting to be a major conference topic. This is about creating an IT culture through education, energy management, power-efficient hardware and cooling redesign & upgrade
• Recycling of packaging: This is not only in terms of better returns management and the use of biodegradable packaging but also into the use of returnable packaging where, of course, RFID will help
• Improving the transparency of financial reporting: To some extent this is about automating the process across company boundaries, therefore an IT-based solution—but one of long standing!

Stephenson closed by discussing how Deloitte were working with a number of companies on creating what he termed "sustainability shareholder value maps[1]" to help promote green initiatives. What this work had proved was that sustainability can be used to drive shareholder value, but it needs to be carefully managed.

The second speaker was Ian Hall, Director of Logistics for Nestlé UK and Ireland. Hall looked at the issue of sustainable transportation, both from a UK and Nestle viewpoint. He quoted figures from a recent DEFRA report on the Food Industry in the UK; the industry is responsible for:

• 14% of energy used
• 10% of water used by industry
• 10% of industry and comercial waste
• 25% of HGV miles
• 20% of greenhouse gas emissions
• 19% of household waste is food waste

DEFRA created, in 2006, The Food Industry Sustainability Strategy (FISS). This covers a number of factors including: corporate social responsibility, ethical trading, water usage, waste management, energy and climate change and food transportation. A target of a 20% reduction in environmental impact by 2012 has been set. To achieve this, the industry has set up a "Champions Group" consisting of retailers and CPG manufacturers. This group has identified "The Big Six" initiatives and set up working parties to investigate how to best achieve them; they are

• Greater capacity vehicles: likely to achieve 5.3% improvement
• Engine specification: 3.5%
• Transport collaboration: 3.2%
• Telematics: 3.0%
• Logistic systems redesign: 2.3%
• Out-of-hours delivery: 2.0%

Each of these has had a committee set up chaired jointly by a retailer and a manufacturer. Hall is the joint chair of the Transportation collaboration working group. The results of these working parties have to be implemented in 3 different streams: firstly through government and industry bodies; secondly through individual company activity; and finally through collaborative inter-company initiatives, such as Efficient Consumer Response (ECR). The second part of the presentation looked at what Nestle themselves were doing around transportation collaboration. Hall explained that transportation costs were now a significant part of production costs for manufacturers. The big challenge for Nestle was vehicle utilisation. Hall explained that the company was looking at a number of ways to improve this utilisation, including:

• Combined loads with both other parts of the company and third parties
• Working with the retailers on order size
• The make-up of loads
• The use of double-decker trucks
• Relating package design and development directly to use on a pallet
• Controlling empty running by maximising multi-drops

Hall stated that "A collaborative approach to business is at the heart of efficiency and sustainability, but collaboration needs a standards-based platform to ensure the free flow of accurate data throughout the supply chain". He ended his talk by saying that Nestle had improved their vehicle utilisation by 6.5% over the last 2 years and reduced the annual mileage by some 0.5million miles! Impressive!

The final speaker was Michael Bowden of GS1 UK. He opened his talk with following quote from Thomas L Friedman in The New York Times on 26 September 2007, "...green is not just right for the world, it is better, more profitable, more healthy, more innovative, more efficient, more successful..." Bowden then asked a rhetorical question of his audience: who owns the sustainability agenda in your organisation. He went on to explain that the answer should be your Board. But how do you go about the process of introducing sustainability? He argued that companies do not have any other choice than to do something about sustainability—your customers are asking if you are green and the proof is coming in that it is efficient too. Bowden recommend that you take a structured approach starting with some baseline comparisons followed by looking at small things. He also stressed the importance of collaboration, particularly on data, which needs standards. It was important to have a plan and also to introduce measures that can be used to check where you are.

So there we have it—being green and lean can not only be ethically viable but also have serious monetary impact. In the UK we have major retailers and manufacturers working together to achieve government targets around sustainability and it is paying off! The key to success is collaboration and to make this happen it is necessary to have standards in place.

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By: Simon Holloway, Senior Analyst, Bloor Research Posted: 25th March 2008 Copyright Bloor Research © 2008

Excuse my little pun, but here we have RFID Anywhere from Sybase's subsidiary iAnywhere that can be run on anything and therefore everywhere! At the beginning of this month (March 2008), I had a briefing with Rob Veitch, Senior Director Business Development, Sybase iAnywhere and Matt Teskey, Senior Product Manager, Sybase iAnywhere to learn more about Sybase's offering in the RFID middleware space.

Sybase have adopted a product strategy for their complete portfolio based around the "Unwired Enterprise". RFID Anywhere is positioned as an Intelligent Sensor Network Management System that integrates RFID and sensor technologies with business logic to enable the development, deployment, configuration and maintenance of distributed intelligent sensor networks. It is the product right at the edge providing the links to the sensory devices, whatever they are, and being able to translate that information back into meaningful information for the business to take action upon.

RFID Anywhere consists of the following components:

• Administration Console - is a web-based administration tool used to access the components of RFID Anywhere.
• Application level Events Engine - this defines standard RFID tag activity reports for EPC tags without coding and feeds these reports into enterprise systems.
• Report Engine MP - provides a development model that allows developers and integrators to process raw RFID data by enabling the creation of XML reports based on the activity of tags from multiple protocols.
• Custom Business Modules - included is a Visual Studio .NET extension to create business logic to coordinate the sensor network and integrate with existing systems by handling events and controlling hardware in real-time through an API.
• SOA Layer - this include a variety of interface from Web Services interfaces to custom business logic and device controllers that exposes logic and provides integration with minimal coding.
• Hardware Connectors - there is a library of hardware connectors that abstract the low-level implementation of each specific piece of hardware. The architecture allow systems integrators to develop applications that support a broad range of hardware without needing to code to each specific hardware interface.
• Controllers - exposes the functionality necessary to support a specific family of devices such as passive RFID readers, active RFID readers, bar code scanners, mobile devices, RFID printers, RTLS systems, PLCs, GPIO or sensors. The functionality exposed by a given controller is common to all devices in the family of hardware that the controller supports.
• Location Information System (LIS) - provides an asset tracking infrastructure with the addition of business contextual information, such as asset temperature. LIS provides a capability to generate location and context data.
• RFID Anywhere Enterprise Manager - enables the management of multiple RFID Anywhere nodes from a central location and is one of the first implementations of Web Services - Management (WS-M). Enterprise Manager provides a superset of the functionality that is exposed through the web-based management console of each individual node. It includes a standalone console that provides a single view of the entire distributed network.
• RFID Network Simulator - includes a graphical tool for creating test tags and defining when the tags should appear and disappear during a simulation. Once a simulation is defined, a connector is used to receive the information from the simulation, and then passed along to the other components of the application being tested.
• Label Designer - used to design the layout of RFID labels. It is a graphical tool that provides a number of controls, such as dynamic text fields and bar codes that can be used to design an RFID label. The Label Designer generates XML documents containing the label design that are imported by specific RFID printer connectors. These designs are then translated by the connector into the format required by the specific printer, and are loaded into the printer's memory so that the labels can be printed and encoded with raw RFID tag data.

RFID Anywhere is an easy to use and understand piece of RFID middleware. Building on the well-established and proven platforms of Microsoft's .NET Framework and Sybase's Information Anywhere Suite, Sybase have exploited this base foundation to deliver all the main requirements in a piece of RFID middleware from device abstraction and management to integration to back office applications. There is a key focus on making the product easy to use for all the different roles involved in an RFID project from business analyst through developer to systems administrator.

Sybase iAnywhere have engineered a very compelling product to support the middleware functionality in RFID and sensory management applications.

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By: Simon Holloway, Senior Analyst, Bloor Research Posted: 13th March 2008 Copyright Bloor Research © 2008

On February 5th 2008, Vitria Technology Inc announced a new Web 2.0 BPM suite, called M₃O. M₃O stands for Model, Manage, Monitor, Optimize. The product is aimed at the nirvana of getting business users to directly model, manage, monitor and optimize their business processes, by exploiting a rich web-based environment with direct collaboration with IT. Bloor were given a heads-up on this new environment before the launch, when Dale Skeen, Chief Executive Officer and Founder, Mark Roth, VP Corporate Marketing, and John Goble, VP Product Marketing, briefed me in mid-January.

Corporate Background
For those of you not aware of Vitria's history, here is a short overview.

Vitria were founded in 1994 when they came out with an EAI product that has now evolved into BusinessWare. They are headquartered in Sunnyvale, California. BusinessWare moved into the BPM space in 1998, when it was one of the first EAI products to support business process integration and business-to-business integration. Vitria went public in September 1999 and is traded on the NASDAQ stock exchange. Throughout the early part of this decade, Vitria have been at the forefront of development in the EAI and BPM space. Skeen explained that "Vitria's mission is to be the market leader in Business Process Management and Business Event Management".

Vitria have two categories of software products in their portfolio:

• Platforms: address a wide range of customer needs related to business process integration. These products support organisations implementing SOA, integrating internal applications and business processes, and orchestrating B2B scenarios.
• Business Process Applications: these are solutions for the Government, Telecommunications and Healthcare/Insurance sectors. These solutions have been built upon Vitria's Platform products and knowledge of the industry sector.

Vitria's customer base includes global 2000 organizations such as AT&T, Bell Canada, BellSouth, Blue Cross Blue Shield Association, BP, BT, DaimlerChrysler, Nissan, Reynolds & Reynolds, RBC Financial Group, Sprint and U.S. Department of Defense.

Why a new platform?
Roth explained "Until now, the modelling and collaboration capabilities of BPM solutions were constrained by a technological gap that kept business analysts and IT professionals separated." In other words, Vitria have seen how the technologies to support business process management can be enhanced through the use of the capabilities of Web 2.0 to give better support for collaboration. Add to that melting pot of goodies all the necessary technology to support event processing—the key behind RFID and other sensory device integration with business processing—and you have M₃O. Globe added "BPM provides standards-based executable modelling (based on BPMN) on top of business knowledge Repository. Web 2.0 provides the rich user experience with zero footprint to enable a collaborative design environment. Event processing provides the support for rule and process definition and real-time runtime performance based on event driven architecture. Only when you combine these together do you get a fundamentally new user experience with multilayer visualization, collaborative modelling environment, business level abstractions and event management"

Except, that is not all that M₃O has to offer. Vitria have added exception management through a product component known as Exception Manager, which provides support for managing and resolving business process exceptions. Roth said "By significantly reducing process delays and manual effort caused by transactions rejected from the normal process path, Exception Manager can increase customer satisfaction, reduce operational costs, and improve process visibility and control."

Understanding M₃O Suite
The M₃O Suite is comprised of BPM, ESB, and Exception Manager.

M₃O Enterprise Service Bus (ESB)
Starting at the bottom we have the M₃O Enterprise Service Bus (ESB). This was originally called Business Accelerator and is also part of Vitria's BusinessWare offering. It runs on IBM, JBoss & BEA application servers on Microsoft Windows, Sun Solaris, IBM AIX or Red Hat Linux. The ESB uses a component process architecture that means composite process models can be built that use nested process models published as services. These nested process models can be called at runtime based on the operational context. Component process architecture allows processes to be deployed to different messaging platforms without changing the process models while using configuration properties. The product seamlessly scales through different Editions to manage growing, enterprise-level process complexity.

M₃O BPM
The middle layer is M₃O BPM, which has been designed for seamless collaboration between business analysts and IT using the BPMN standard. The Rich Internet Application (RIA) interface provides a way for users to manage their workspaces which reflect business models and process components in business vocabulary. Business analysts create processes by combining a series of business steps which can be shared and reused in the enterprise. The BPM Modeller has active support for multi-role collaborations with notifications, dependencies, impact analysis and exploration. The collaboration is managed through roles and privileges. The same modelling tool is used by both business analysts and IT.

M₃O BPM also supports Business Event Management using an event-driven architecture with Event Policies and Event Lifecycle Management. Events can be used to trigger processes and services (and vice versa). The product uses a modelling concept of an event policy, which is a business expression of the different types of events to be discovered and the required actions or responses to be taken. Event policies are stored in the model and knowledge repository where they can be organised, searched and discovered. Policies are linked to the other models and definitions on which they depend.

M₃O BPM provides full Event Lifecycle Management—the entire lifecycle of an event from the time that it is first discovered to the last action that is performed. Each event and its corresponding actions are monitored and logged throughout this lifecycle, providing both real-time visibility into event processing as well as governance of business operations.

M₃O BPM also contains a model and knowledge repository. When this was being described to me it reminded me of the Information Resource Dictionary Systems (IRDS) standards work I was involved in back in the early 1990's. The repository is used to store the models and other metadata that define the process models that drive the applications. A mechanism is available to monitor and govern policies and rules. The stored data models can be used for situational and predictive analysis.

Building on the experience of Vitria's BusinessWare, Analyzer, and Business Cockpit components, M₃O BPM provides the management visibility into complex business processes defined and running in M₃O environment. Analysis displays of the process status are available over the web. When process chokepoints occur, they are highlighted. Key performance indicators of performance against targets can be traced. The product supports the generation of alerts when process metrics exceed threshold values. Process data for analysis can be extracted by 3rd party business intelligence tools.

Exception Manager
Exception Manager is a purpose-built application that uses all of M₃O's capabilities to automatically resolve process exceptions across an organisation. Exception Manager classifies the incoming exceptions and, as well, can automatically resolve problems, providing resolution guidance with context-sensitive workflow when human involvement is required. The normal process flow can be restarted from point of exception. A full audit trail across the entire exception resolution lifecycle is provided. In Bloor's view, exemption management is essential to the successful widespread adoption of SOA.

Should you be interested?
Vitria, like many vendors involved in the BPM market, are looking to what is required in what Bloor is terming BPM v2.0. Gone are all the old differentiators such as support for human workflow or support for integration or support for BPEL or BPMN. These are all features that are required as part of the basic set of a BPM suite. So where are the differentiators? Some vendors, like Vitria, have identified that link between SOA and BPM and also Event Management. Vitria, with a number of other vendors, has also seen the need for BPM v2.0 to support better collaboration between business users and IT, with the former being given more capability to design and build solutions with IT providing the necessary control and management. But it is only Vitria that have recognised the need for software to manage exceptions. Exception Manager is an exceptional idea (excuse the pun).

Vitria's pedigree in integration and BPM speaks for itself. With the M₃O Suite, they are taking their software delivery to the next level. Bloor would seriously recommend that Vitria's M₃O be part of anyone's evaluation list of BPM of the new generation.

M₃O and Exception Manager are currently available for Early Access for qualified customers and partners. Both products will be released at the end of March.

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By: Simon Holloway, Senior Analyst, Bloor Research Posted: 5th March 2008 Copyright Bloor Research © 2008

RF-iT Solutions were formed initially as a business venture division of Infineon in 2001, becoming a separate company in 2005 as a result of a management buy-out. Their headquarters are in Graz, Austria. Just before Christmas I started a set of 2 briefings with Dominik Berger, the CEO of RF-iT Solutions.

RF-iT Solutions uses a concept called a "Tube". What is a Tube? A Tube is a complete solution for an identification point. They represent a communication channel between tags or devices and IT back-end systems. At a macro level, Tubes include the specification and configuration of the hardware and the environment of the RFID subsystem at an RFID Identification Point-starting with the specification of transponders to the definition of a parameter set for reader and antennas, filter- aggregation and data processing routines up to the interfaces to Enterprise IT systems. Optionally Tubes can have a graphical user interface or, for example, a connector to automation equipment (Programmable Logic Controllers).

The You-R OPEN system integration platform consists of RFID edgeware components for runtime (You-R OPEN Tube Manager) and tools to develop (You-R OPEN Tube Builder) install, monitor, maintain and upgrade the RFID device infrastructure (You-R OPEN Administration Suite). The whole suite has been built on top of a Microsoft .NET platform. The components run on Windows XP Professional, Windows XP Home, Windows 2000 (Family) and Windows 2003 Server. Tubes and Tube Manger run also on Windows CE or Pocket PC 4.2 or higher where the .NET compact Framework 2.0 runs. RF-iT Solutions informed Bloor that Tube Manager and Tube can also run on Linux with special support and that this will be fully supported in a release during 2008.

The components are:

• You-R OPEN Tube Builder is the graphical development tool for Tubes. There are several ready-made Tubes available that are stored in the Tube Library. They are stored as Tube Builder projects in the Tube Catalog. There is a Tube Library for Mobile device as well.
• You-R OPEN Administration Suite is a web-based project configuration and administration tool. It provides support for monitoring and configuring You-R OPEN environment. The web interface is able to run with a normal internet browser.
• You-R OPEN Tube Manager is the You-R OPEN component, which is installed on every work-station, on which one or more Tubes are connected to the Administration Suite. There is a release for standard Microsoft operating systems but also one for mobile devices running on Windows CE or on a Pocket PC operating system.
• The Verification Client is an additional component included in the You-R OPEN software package. It supports visualisation of a tag list that is currently in an antenna field to verify web service interfaces of Tubes to the Enterprise IT world and to verify and manipulate user data of transponders.
• You-R OPEN Enterprise Administration Suite is used to maintain more than one Administration Suite. It has a web interface to monitor and administer the software using a standard internet browser. An Application Server is used to enable the display of web pages. The communication between the EAS and several Administration Suites is organised by the Enterprise Administration Suite Service.

RF-iT Solutions You-R OPEN product set is well established in central Europe. The experience of the company in being involved in early RFID projects at the beginning of the century shows in the usability of the tool set. A lot of work has gone into making You-R OPEN components appeal to being used by SI personnel. When being taken through the demonstration, it became very apparent how quickly an IT-aware person could be quickly productive with the tool set. For RF-iT Solutions to grow further then they need to look at the development of a partner sales channel in the US and Far East. Bloor would recommend that You-R OPEN has a lot to offer and should be part of anyone's evaluation list for RFID middleware.

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By: Simon Holloway, Senior Analyst, Bloor Research Posted: 27th February 2008 Copyright Bloor Research © 2008

Quite a title! Can a product have the key things that, as an analyst, you feel sort the wheat from the chaff and be easy to use and not that expensive? Well I think I found just such a product in the RFID middleware arena—GlobeRanger's iMotion. Over the last year I have had a number of meetings with senior staff from GlobeRanger, culminating with a final briefing with Michael Becker, Director of Marketing and Sales Support, Baldev Nair, VP Marketing and Product Management, and Bryan Tracey, VP Engineering and Chief Architect, at the end of January 2008.

So who are GlobeRanger? GlobeRanger is a relatively small company, founded in 1999 with headquarters in Richardson, Texas, USA. Their Mission Statement says that they are there to provide the most reliable, scalable and flexible enterprise edge software infrastructure at the lowest total cost of ownership. Their current customer base is around 50 with some 100 installations and includes US Department of Defense (DoD) - Defense Distribution Centers, FloraHolland, Daisy Brand and Beaver Street Fisheries. GlobeRanger, on the face of it with no sales offices outside the USA, would seem a typical USA start-up company, but their sales strategy is based on an indirect global distribution model using "best of class" System Integrators (SI), Independent Software Vendor (ISV) and Device Hardware vendors. And boy have they been successful with the ISV community, with Infor, Red Prairie and HighJump all developing their RFID solutions on top of GlobeRanger. They are partners with the major hardware vendors in the market, including Alien, AWID, Intermec, Motorola, Printronix, TI-RFID and Zebra. Their SI partners include Atos Origin, Unisys and Booz Allen Hamilton at the top end with smaller niche partners like CDO Technologies and CACI International Inc.

Ok so what about their product, iMotion? GlobeRanger uses the words ‘edge' and ‘edgeware' a lot. So it is important to understand what they mean. Tracey gave the following definition, "Edgeware refers to the edge of the Enterprise. Edgeware provides communication from the EDGE (reader, handheld, etc.) to core applications by translating the raw data coming from the EDGE into relevant business context (intelligence) that can automatically integrate with back-end systems." The iMotion 5.2 platform has been developed on top of .NET and separates business logic from device management. All device management occurs within the Edge Device Management (EDM) architecture where devices are configured and monitored, while business logic and context is applied within the Edge Process Management (EPM) architecture.

The iMotion platform consists of:

• Edge Device Manager: supports an array of edge devices such as fixed and handheld readers, printers, motion detectors, light and temperature sensors, LED displays, voice recordings etc, and provides support for RFID devices and other devices, such as barcode scanners, light stacks, photo eyes and handheld computers.
• Edge Process Manager: interprets edge events in a business context, providing the critical link between edge devices and business applications.
• Event Workflow Editor: iMotion expresses business logic as Visual Event Workflows. Workflows are created by selecting business logic components from a palette, dropping them on a canvas, and connecting them to indicate event processing flow.
• Visual Device Emulator: allows the user to simulate and test tag ID read events by emulating the placement of readers, antennas and binary devices without having to actually deploy those devices.
• iMotion SDK: includes abstract classes and Microsoft Visual Studio extensions, so as to create Workflow Components.
• Visual Management and Monitoring tools: iMotion includes a set of visual tools for configuration and monitoring of deployed solutions. They include the Edge Management Console (EMC) and Monitoring Dashboard.

GlobeRanger has also developed a number of add-ons to the RFID Middleware:

• The GlobeRanger SAP-AII Solution Accelerator acts as an RFID Device Controller and a Device Orchestrator for the SAP Auto-ID Infrastructure (SAP-AII). It conforms to version 2.1 of the SAP AII-DC Interface (SAP AII-DC 1.0) specification.
• The GlobeRanger Federal Solution Accelerator was designed to speed-up the development and deployment of solutions for automating RFID-enabled processes as tag commissioning, inventory management, shipping - receiving reconciliation, and reporting needs, as specified by the U.S. Federal Government.
• The GlobeRanger Mobility Platform supports various fixed and wireless communications modes to connect with remote devices. Capabilities such as store-and-forward, automatic switchover, guaranteed message delivery, and encryption and compression (for security and economy) provide support for RFID deployments with mobile read points.

So why have I waxed so lyrically about GlobeRanger at the start of this article? For a small company, they have a real understanding of the role of RFID middleware and how the evolving standards can be implemented effectively. iMotion is simple to use and takes very little training for an IT-literate person to be productive quickly. For Microsoft developers used to Visual Studio and BizTalk, it is easier still. iMotion provides very good support for EPCglobal standards and is particularly strong in its implementation of ALE (this may not be surprising as they were heavily involved in the development of this standard).

The Visual Device Emulator is, in my opinion, the best on the market at this moment of writing—in fact it is the jewel in GlobeRanger's crown. It not only means that hardware decisions can be delayed so the software can be written and tested before any physical upheaval occurs, but in certain cases the Emulator could be used to prove a business case without having to do a full proof of concept!

The other real key is they understand the need to empower the edge. The edge of organisations—retail outlets, warehouses, factories, offices—have their own events and processes, some of which are important to the main business processes but not all. Where there is a connection, the edge still needs to maintain an independence from the centre so that it can still operate even if the communication network is down. iMotion not only provides support for the management of devices at the edge but, critically, also provides support through the Edge Process Manager for the management of processes at the edge. In Bloor's view RFID middleware architecture is not complete without both device and process management at the edge.

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By: Philip Howard, Director of Research - Technology, Bloor Research Posted: 18th February 2008 Copyright Bloor Research © 2008

The complex event processing (CEP) market is evolving. It has got beyond the stage where people are worried about what to call it: should it be called CEP, ESP (event stream processing) or just plain event processing? Indeed EPTS (the event processing technical society) will shortly be releasing an official glossary of terms.

That isn't to say there isn't still debate. For example, the EPTS will be defining an event as "something that happens" which is fine but raises the question of whether when it happens is relevant: is this part of the event or metadata about the event? This is significant because on this depends whether you can have such a thing as a non-event. Now, what you and I would call a non-event (in real life that is) is a period of time in which nothing happens, but in a CEP environment what has happened is that an RFID scanner, say, has made multiple readings during which the only thing that has changed is the timestamp. So, is this an event or a non-event?

Anyway, enough of the theory. Arguably, the most interesting thing to have happened in the CEP space recently is the acquisition of AptSoft by IBM. Not that this is worrying Progress or StreamBase because AptSoft has not made much (if any) impact on the high performance end of the CEP sector in capital markets. And, indeed, IBM's reference to AptSoft as BEP (business event processing) implies cognizance of this fact. Where we will see AptSoft in IBM terms is primarily as a part of the WebSphere suite where it will play a role in SOA implementations, for example. Progress Apama is also, incidentally, directed at this market as a part of the Progress SOA Suite. When Oracle finally introduces its own CEP product (my guess is that it will [and should] scrap BEA's offering) it will no doubt be aimed in the same direction; and of course this is a natural for TIBCO.

As far as capital markets are concerned the three main players are clearly Progress Apama, StreamBase, Aleri and possibly Coral8, arguably in that order. However, what's interesting is that there is an increasing demand for back-ending these systems with a data warehouse (when the market for RFID finally takes off the same is likely to apply there as well), an area which Sybase is focusing on with its Real-time Analytics Platform, as is Vertica. This sort of functionality is particularly in demand by hedge funds so Kx Systems' implementations in these environments may be under threat. As an aside, and in case you are wondering why I haven't mentioned any of the more well-known names in the data warehousing space, it is worth noting that Sybase IQ, Vertica and Kx all use column-based relational databases that are particularly suitable for the sort of high performance ad hoc analytics required in these environments (though this would also be true of the likes of Netezza).

Another major market for CEP is intelligence services, though this is largely untapped outside the United States. Here, StreamBase and AgentLogic are the leading vendors, in part because both of them are (partly) funded by (indirectly) the CIA. However, while this certainly represents an entrée in the States it doesn't mean so elsewhere. Moreover, the nature of the applications involved is highly secret, so neither StreamBase nor AgentLogic would be able to claim very much in the way of hands-on experience in these environments. In other words, the opportunity is there for other vendors to penetrate non-US intelligence markets.

As I have commented previously there are a lot of use cases for CEP but not many markets. Certainly there have been a number of implementations in transport and logistics (where TIBCO has been doing well) but my suspicion is that the next major market will be in manufacturing and, particularly, in process manufacturing or in other process sectors (such as power stations). Demonstrable benefits can be achieved in productivity gains by employing CEP in these environments (Progress and Avaya can both quote examples) and, perhaps most important, shop-floor environments tend to understand the concept of events so that the sales cycle should not be so long.

The market for CEP is clearly alive and kicking but it is still a minority sport: Progress Apama has something over 75 customers, StreamBase approaching 50 and these are the two leading vendors. AptSoft had 19 prior to acquisition. A total market size of around 200 customers to-date means that CEP is still only tinkering at the fringes today, but the possibilities are huge.

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By: Simon Holloway, Senior Analyst, Bloor Research Posted: 13th February 2008 Copyright Bloor Research © 2008

OAT Systems was one of the first software companies to offer RFID middleware. The company was founded in 2001 by Sanjay Sarma, their Chief Scientist, and Prasad Putta, responsible for business and technical strategic partnerships. Sarma co-founded MIT's Auto-ID Centre and has served as its Chairman of Research. OAT's headquarters are in Waltham, Massachusetts, USA. Over December 2007 and January 2008, I had 2 briefing sessions with Paul Cataldo, Vice President of Marketing, and Dr. Venkat Krishnamurthy, Chief Technology Officer, to get a better understanding of their product portfolio.

The goal of most RFID deployments is to integrate data from multiple facilities or across trading partners to provide a clear view of a business's operations, inventory and asset movements. Therefore the key to being successful in translating the real-time world of RFID to the business world of ERP is a successful RFID middleware product. This has to be easy to use as well as having a flexible architecture allowing cost effective implementation of the software. Once you have this foundation then you can exploit the additional data that is generated by RFID.

So what does OAT Systems offer? The OAT Foundation Suite consists of the following products:

• OATenterprise: OATenterprise provides centralised data management for analytics and visibility across the enterprise. In addition, it enables organisations to centrally manage, monitor, configure and provision business logic and enterprise RFID infrastructures. With this capability, users can provision business logic directly on edge devices such as readers and controllers.
• OATxpress: OATxpress is the runtime part of OAT Foundation Suite and supports RFID data management and real-time alerts for a single edge unit. It provides dozens of best practice scenarios for RFID-centric processes such as Tag Commissioning, Pallet Building, Shipment Verification and Receiving. OATxpress manages the issue of globally unique EPCs to products in compliance with EPCglobal standards, including support for SGTIN, SSCC, and DoD data formats. As an EPCglobal Capture application, OATxpress provides business context for RFID data and integration into existing systems and processes.
• OATdesigner: OATdesigner includes a graphical tool which allows users to modify and create new business scenarios. It creates the required rfBPEL¹ automatically, eliminating the need to enter code manually. It also contains a library of rfPrimitives. The services in the tool are accessed through a graphical user interface. Finally there is a software development kit (SDK) that provides documentation, examples and tools to support the creation of rfBPEL elements.
• OATdevice manager: OATdevice manager manages large-scale and dense device deployment scenarios, including non-RFID devices for alerts and exception handling. All devices being used in a solution are defined and maintained through its maintenance services. Other services are provided to monitor and improve the performance and operation of the device under its control. Devices supported include: all UHF Gen 2 Readers; a number of HF Readers and RFID Printers; Cisco Devices; WiFI Tags; Programme Logic Controllers (PLCs); and devices that support the OPC interface.

Also part of the OAT Foundation Suite is OATaxiom, which automates the process of cleaning, monitoring and analysing RFID data, while providing an analytics platform with pre-defined reports. It has a pre-built analytic cube using RFID-specific metadata elements.

On top of this OAT Systems delivers pre-configured application solutions that leverage its middleware. For example in the retailing sector, they have:

• Item-Level Availability: this is concerned with reducing stock outs and markdowns and thereby increasing customer satisfaction;
• Real-Time Promotion Execution: this is concerned with ensuring that promotions happen at the right time, with the right product, and in the right place.
• Perishable Goods Management: this is concerned with reducing shrinkage, preventing markdowns and prolonging shelf life.
• Out-of-Stock Analysis and Prevention: this is concerned with eliminating phantom inventory and empty shelves.
• Reusable Asset Tracking: for tracking order management and distribution from facility to facility.

Like the above retailing solutions the following consumer product goods solutions have been developed based on OAT Systems' experience of implementation. The solutions include two of the retail solutions:

• Out-of-Stock Analysis and Prevention
• Real-Time Promotion Execution

Other CPG solutions are:

• tag@source: automated inline tagging solution.
• Mobile Tag: this is a portable solution for printing EPC tags at remote facilities, such as those of contract manufacturers, enabling them to apply the tags before shipping displays to individual stores.
• Asset Tracking: this is a real-time traffic control system that monitors pallets, dollies, and shipping containers as they move through the supply chain and reporting arrivals and spotting deviations.

OAT Systems also offers solutions for Industrial Manufacturers that, similar to the above solutions, have been developed and refined based on OAT Systems' experience of implementation in this sector. The tag@source and Asset Tracking solutions are available for industrial manufacturers. A final solution is:

• Work-in-Process: in this solution a complete record of components and assemblies in terms of EPC data is collected as the items move through production stages and is linked with data from testing and quality control systems to provide a detailed, auditable history of manufacturing activity.

OAT Systems has come a long way since 2004 and their first analyst review which highlighted some issues around enterprise-class integration and data management capabilities. Those issues have been solved and OAT Systems has used their experience of implementation to enhance the basic functions of RFID middleware so that it is easier to implement through the use of its preconfigured Use Cases and, in addition, the architecture topology for implementation is flexible so that the software can be implemented on a great variety of alternatives. On top of this OAT Systems is now delivering pre-configured application solutions that leverage its middleware.

Bloor sees OAT Systems as one of the scene-setters of the RFID Middleware market and therefore should be one of the first names on a selection list.

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By: Simon Holloway, Senior Analyst, Bloor Research Posted: 11th February 2008 Copyright Bloor Research © 2008

I jave just received 3 announcements from AeroScout, one of the leading RTLS vendors in the market that I thought I would share with you all.

MobileView, their software suite for tracking, managing, alerting and integrating asset location and status data has a new version—4.0. Additional facilities include the ability to accept data from a variety of wireless data sources such as Active and Passive RFID sensors, as well as improved usability and redesigned look and feel. More details to follow once I have had a briefing from them.

On February 4th, AeroScout announced a partnership with Reva Systems to deliver a combined Active RFID and Passive RFID solution for enterprises. Reva Systems provide a gateway for Passive RFID data to AeroScout's new MobileView 4.0 application, enabling customers to use it as a single platform to view and manage all enterprise assets, regardless of the asset being tracked or the technology used. This looks interesting, particularly with the increasing use of combined Active and Passive technology to solve business issues. For instance, linking an Active RFID tag on a container to the Passive RFID tags on items inside that container.

Also on February 4th, AeroScout announced its new Ultra-Wi-Fi line of products that enable asset tracking using both Wi-Fi and Ultra Wideband (UWB). The system was developed with partner Time Domain and features the industry's only dual-mode tag that can be tracked with a standard Wi-Fi network across the enterprise while also adding the high precision and inches-level accuracy of UWB where it is required. Ultra-Wi-Fi products will be marketed and sold by both AeroScout and Time Domain and will be available through the companies' channel partners. In addition, the companies have signed a distribution agreement that enables Time Domain to use the AeroScout Engine to determine UWB location, as a component of the Time Domain PLUS™ UWB system. The Ultra-Wi-Fi solution is currently installed with beta customers and will be available at the end of Q1.

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By: Simon Holloway, Senior Analyst, Bloor Research Posted: 5th February 2008 Copyright Bloor Research © 2008

Convergent Software Limited has announced the release of the industry's first diagnostic tool to test the compliance of RFID encoded data. It consists of two modules intended to help end-users in the air transportation sector with project planning and analysis of RFID tags:

• Encoding Simulator
• Diagnostic Tool

The encoding simulator is compliant with IATA's RP1740C RFID standard for baggage handling. It enables airlines, airports and project managers to simulate the encoding of RFID tags. The memory capacity can be adjusted to candidate tag products and real baggage handling data is encoded to produce the byte stream to be encoded in the RFID tag. The simulator allows the user to select the optional data elements and rank them into a priority sequence. This particular feature is useful because a number of fields are variable length and the simulator encodes the most important fields up to the capacity of the selected memory.

The diagnostic tool ensures that data is properly encoded on the tag in a compliant manner with an application standard. Its major feature is that it identifies potential encoding errors in the following features:

• Data validation to be compliant with the application standard
• Data compaction
• Encoding of data formats and object identifiers
• Syntax to be compliant with the ISO/IEC 15962 encoding rules
• Whether a sub-optimum compaction scheme has been used

The software produces HTML reports showing the results of encoding and decoding. The error reports from the diagnostic tool provide an electronic record of the errors found so that these reports can be exchanged between the airport and airline implementing the RFID data capture application and the organisation responsible for creating the error.

Who is Covergent Software? For those of you have been reading my articles in IT-Analysis, you may remember an interview with Paul Chartier, Project Editor of ISO/IEC 15961 and ISO/IEC 15962 at the end of October 2007. Well, Chartier is the Managing Director of Convergent Software Limited, whose principals have over 30 years experience with AIDC technology and computing. Convergent Software is currently working with partners on developing encoding simulators, diagnostic software and component tool sets for RFID systems.

Convergent Software looks set to become an important niche player in the RFID market. The experience Chartier and his colleagues have in the industry looks set to making Convergent Software a company to watch.

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By: Simon Holloway, Senior Analyst, Bloor Research Posted: 1st February 2008 Copyright Bloor Research © 2008

On January 17th 2008, I met Atul Saini, CEO and CTO of Fiorano Software to follow up with the briefing I had last year (August 2007). Accompanying Saini was Sandeep Rammanand, Fiorano's Director for Partner Relations and head of the UK operations. In the pleasant surroundings of the Kensington Forum, we talked about where Fiorano were going.

For those of you not familiar with Fiorano, here is short review of what they do. They were founded in 1995 and are a privately held company headquartered in Silicon Valley, Los Gatos, California, USA. In 1998, they became the first company to release a commercial Java product based on Sun Microsystems's Java Message Service. Fiorano SOA Platform is a middleware platform that allows heterogeneous software services to be deployed across an enterprise service grid. The service-grid architecture of Fiorano SOA Platform provides a Service-Oriented platform for Enterprise Application Integration (EAI), Business Process Management (BPM) and Automation and Business to Business (B2B) integration. Distributed services deployed across a grid of service containers can be assembled into composite applications to automate business processes. The suite includes a set of tools to visually design, configure, deploy, manage and optimize these business processes.

Fiorano are a horizontal player selling technology across numerous verticals, although the majority of the customers are in the finance and telco sectors. Fiorano see an opportunity for them in the SME manufacturing sector—particularly aerospace and automotive, industries in which the UK is still particularly strong! Like many organisations of their size, Fiorano have had to be better priced, technologically superior and with high service to compete against the "big boys" in the integrations space such as IBM, Tibco and BEA. When you look at Fiorano's customer list, you can see that they have been very successful doing this.

Tackling the SME market is different. Yes, price is important, but now you are dealing with a small IT department, or even none, with tight budgets and everything bought has to yield ROI within 3 to 6 months. It is a market where packages are rife and there are islands of information in each silo managed by the packages. And now these organisations have to become even more flexible and agile to respond to the changes in the business market, particularly by their bigger customers.

Integration technology at an affordable price is a Holy Grail in the SME market. To achieve the needs being placed on SMEs through the Extended Supply Chain philosophy of larger manufacturers, then integration is an absolute key. In Europe, the supply chain of many OEMS very quickly drops into SME space (for example fresh food, automotive, aerospace, Industrial machinery, pharmaceutical research). In the past (led by retailers) EDI has been seen as the way to send orders and receive ASN's and invoices. However EDI for SMEs is a far too expensive option and not easy to use either! A small number of ISV's (for example CoVast) have been offering EDI on XML solutions. However as the use of RFID to identify products for tracking and tracing (plus temperature control and other environmental factors) moves down the supply chain either through retailer mandates or, in the case of aerospace, government and the major OEMs (Boeing and Airbus), SME's will be required to supply RFID information to their customers. All this points the way for products that can support the SaaS model.

Fiorano are well placed to enter the market to prove the toolset to provide Integration for this SME market. I see that this would probably be best accomplished by Fiorano working in partnership with ISVs who supply product to the SME market and also to exploit their existing telco relationship, as many of these companies are looking to provide SaaS service over their networks. Ah! Isn't it good to see all those things you have talked about for the last 10 years starting to come together!

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By: Simon Holloway, Senior Analyst, Bloor Research Posted: 6th December 2007 Copyright Bloor Research © 2007

Cisco sees RFID as part of the evolution of the network with RFID enabling the transfer from an internet of devices to an internet of things. "Things" become networked by adding tags to them. The ‘information’ about ‘things’ becomes networked through the use of sensors. This means that the growth in network traffic is going to come in the majority from RFID devices rather than computer clients (This supposition is supported by some research done by IDC^[1]).

At the beginning of October 2007, I had a briefing with Andy Lee, Cisco's RFID Market Development Manager, to understand Cisco's approach to RFID and RTLS.

Cisco has 2 products in the RFID infrastructure space:

• Cisco AON for RFID embeds RFID middleware functions into the network -onto Cisco devices.
• Cisco Location Solution is a Real-Time Location solution using Active tags with Cisco's WiFi solution.

Let us first have a look at AON for RFID (Applications-Oriented Networks). It is a mix of software, hardware, and service offerings:

• Cisco 2600/2800/3700/3800 Series AON Module: this is a network module that can be installed in any Cisco 2600 or 3700 series router as well as the Cisco 2800 Series Integrated Services Router and the Cisco 3800 Series Integrated Services Router. It is primarily deployed at the enterprise edge as the primary device for RFID filtering, collection, and capture.
• Cisco Catalyst 6500 Series AON Module: this is a service module that can be installed in any Cisco Catalyst 6500 Series switch to take advantage of the switch's availability, security and traffic management capabilities. The AON Service Module will be deployed in the data centre, providing intelligent message routing of RFID messages and integrating into existing business applications.
• Cisco AON Management Console (AMC): this is a Linux-based (RedHat) Web application. AMC provides role-based access control for centralised management of AON. The application helps ensure that the configurations across all Cisco AON devices (nodes) in a distributed infrastructure are consistent and up-to-date.
• Cisco AON Development Studio (ADS): this is a Windows (2000 or XP) design-time tool. ADS allows developers to configure the run-time handling of application messages.
• Cisco AON for RFID Advanced Services Offerings: this is a Cisco advanced services group offering of a set of packaged service offerings designed to help clients design, build, and deploy RFID solutions using Cisco AON.
• The final component is BEA's WebLogic RFID Edge Server, which forms an integrated component of the Cisco AON for RFID solution. This is implemented on the Cisco Routers.

So, what we have in AON for RFID is software modules that are added to the Cisco standard routers, plus a Linux management console and a Windows development environment. AON has really strong support for EPCglobal standards covering the entire stack that has been ratified at the present time. There are 2 extensions currently available for AON. The first is for financial services and supports the use of Financial Information eXchange (FIX) protocol. The other is B2B processing and covers secure file transfer.

So what about Cisco Location Solution? The foundation of the Cisco Location Solution is the controller-based architecture of the Cisco Unified Wireless Network. This Network product consists of 3 major components:

• Cisco Aironet access points wirelessly connect devices to the network resources and simultaneously monitor the air space to send radio information back to the WLAN controllers.
• WLAN controllers can be standalone devices or integrated with switches or routers, which collect and analyse the information sent by the access points and build a view of the wireless environment and automatically take action to avoid interferences or gaps in coverage.
• Cisco Wireless Control System is a management tool that uses the information gathered by the WLAN controllers to provide a view of the WLAN across multiple controllers for planning, configuration, and management from a central location.

The key piece of hardware in the Cisco Location solution is the Cisco Wireless Location Appliance. This requires no client software or proprietary readers and provides an open "north-bound" SOAP/XMP API. This means that a business can choose any applications it wants based on end-user requirements rather than network constraints, because the solution allows any application to be supported independently from the tags used.

The Cisco Location Solution supports 2 different styles of location services. The first is a WiFi Location System, which provides updates of the location and telemetry information sent between the locatable device (WiFi device or tag) and the reader (access point) over a long range, plus pervasive tracking of the location and telemetry information (over all the facilities). The second location service is a chokepoint Location System which updates location and telemetry information on a per-event basis, such as when the tag is in proximity of the chokepoint.

Cisco's RFID Strategy is built on the premise that, over time, many objects will be tagged and that therefore the network traffic involving information to do with location and other pieces of associated information such as environmental information (e.g. temperature) increases.

AON for RFID has some compelling reasons why organisations should look at it as a possible solution for RFID middleware. With Cisco's strong market segment share of the network market, most organisations are using Cisco routers and the ability to use certain of their existing range as the base platform means that there is cost reduction for implantation of an RFID solution. The one drawback to the solution is the single choice of middleware technology partner: BEA.

The Cisco Location Solution is a good choice for organisations deploying their first location and telemetry solution. The equipment to be added is minimal (Cisco Wireless Location Appliance) and the management tool (Cisco Wireless Control System); of course as long as you are using Cisco routers! The use of the WiFi standard means that organisations are not locked into a proprietary solution and can track all its WiFi devices without additional cost.

Cisco has an interesting perspective on RFID and, with their strength in the network market, have the necessary existing customer base to exploit to gain a good market share. Bloor would recommend all Cisco customers to consider Cisco RFID solutions if they are looking at the technology.

[1]
Planning for Proliferation: The Impact of RFID on the Network, Duncan Brown and Evelien Wiggers, IDC White Paper, March 2005.

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By: Simon Holloway, Senior Analyst, Bloor Research Posted: 29th November 2007 Copyright Bloor Research © 2007

I first came across Ubisense at the RFID ROI Summit at the beginning of the year. I followed this with a meeting at the Cambridge Headquarters, where I got to know the product better. In September, I met up with Richard Green, their CEO, at the IDTechEx RFID Summit and this resulted in a briefing I had with Green and his new VP Marketing, Charles Sturman.

So who are Ubisense and what makes them so interesting? Well firstly they are British—flag waving a necessity after another disastrous week in the national sport of soccer! OK, seriously, what makes them different is that they are one of the first companies to exploit Ultra-Wide Band for RTLS. I have introduced 2 terms that some of my audience maybe unaware of, so I will give a short explanation of these 2 terms, the rest of you may skip the next 2 paragraphs.

So what exactly is UWB? The RFID Journal glossary states that UWB is "any radio technology having a bandwidth exceeding the lesser of 500 MHz or 20 percent of the arithmetic centre frequency, according to the Federal Communications Commission (FCC)." A bit of a mouthful! Sturman described it as "precisely timed short bursts of RF energy to provide accurate triangulation of the position of the transmitting tag. Since the short time UWB signal is very broad in frequency spread (typically 1 to 2 GHz wide) the system can operate on a very low power output and is robust against interference."

So what is RTLS? It is any wireless technology that can be used to continuously determine and track the real-time location of assets and personnel. An RTLS solution typically utilizes battery-operated radio tags and a cellular locating system to detect the presence and location of the tags. The locating system is usually deployed as a matrix of locating devices (or sensors) that are installed at a spacing of anywhere from 50 to 1000 feet depending on the site layout. These sensors determine the locations of the radio tags.

The Ubisense solution consists of three major components; the RTLS sensor network hardware, the Spatial Platform software and a suite of software applications.

• Slim Tag is designed to be mounted on the side of vehicles and assets or to be worn by a person;
• Compact Tag is a small rugged device specifically designed for use in harsh industrial environments;
• Series 7000 sensor contains an array of antennas and ultra-wideband (UWB) radio receivers and calculates the location of the tags based on reception of the detected UWB signals transmitted from the Ubisense tags;
• Location Engine includes all the software needed to install and tune a Ubisense sensor network and track tags in real time, through a series of configuration wizards;
• Location Platform provides persistent storage and distribution of real-time location events for multiple clients in conjunction with real-time monitoring and notification of user-specified spatial interactions between objects;
• Developer is a set of development tools which allow the Location Platform data model to be extended to define new kinds of objects and relationships.

There are some neat features about Ubisense tags. Firstly, they employ a unique dual-radio architecture. Tags transmit UWB radio pulses, which are used to determine location and a conventional bi-directional 2.4GHz radio which is used as a control and telemetry channel. Secondly, they are able to read in real-time to a precision of 15cm in 3D!

The Ubisense Series 7000 Sensor can be incorporated into existing networks, thus keeping down network costs. Each sensor can determine both the azimuth and elevation Angle of Arrival (AOA) of a UWB signal, providing a bearing to each tag. The Time Difference of Arrival (TDOA) information is determined between pairs of sensors connected with a timing cable.

The software elements run on Windows (XP or Vista) or Linux. There is a big tie into Microsoft, where Ubisense were the first RTLS vendor to go into partnership with the new RFID element of Microsoft Biztalk Server 2006 R2. The Location Platform supports 100% managed .NET 2.0 API for viewing of all data and control of every system function, as well as managed DirectX .NET 2.0 2D/3D user-scriptable visualization controls.

Ubisense have seen significant growth during 2007. They have acquired a number of top-notch partners both from an implementation viewpoint as well as from a technology one. They have had some significant customer wins and their vertical strategy is well thought out.

Organisations looking at RTLS should consider the significantly higher accuracy and reliability that UWB can provide for a modest additional investment over other solutions. Bloor strongly suggests that Ubisense's product should be on the evaluation lists of prospective RTLS buyers.

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By: Simon Holloway, Senior Analyst, Bloor Research Posted: 29th November 2007 Copyright Bloor Research © 2007

Marshall Solutions and Ubisense announced on Novemember 28th 2007, the setting up of an aerospace production RTLS competence centre in Cambridge,UK. The centre is designed to showcase the benefits which Real Time Location Systems (RTLS) can bring to the production environment.

Marshall Solutions parent company, Marshall Aerospace, is the UK's leading independent aerospace contractor. Marshalls are already using Ubisesnse Series 7000 RLTS system to track test and manufacturing equipment used in the manufacture of aircraft fuel tanks in 1.2 million square feet of hangar space. Marshalls have seen benefits in terms of cost reduction, manpower savings, reductions in tool loss, and safety improvements from using RTLS.

"We are very excited about this development," stated Peter Hiscocks, CEO of Marshall Solutions. "RTLS has improved the efficiency of our manufacturing operations and we know that this technology has applications across the aerospace manufacturing, MRO and airports businesses. We will use our RTLS system to demonstrate to other potential customers the effectiveness of this approach and the types of savings that they can achieve."

The RTLS centre will be used to create more optimized production processes and provide Marshall's customers with the opportunity to share their vision of Aerospace Manufacturing in the future.

I have only just written an article about the new GS1 RFID Centre, in which I wasn't very complimentary (Oh no! Not another UK RFID Test Centre!). More about that later in a future article based on an interview with David Lyons of GS1 that I have had recently. Is this good for the industry? Well one could say anything that demonstrates how RFID can assist business in reducing costs is a good thing. What makes this centre interesting are the companies involved. I have just written an article about the Ubisense product (Ultra-Wide Band RTLS - the Ubisense way). If you are in Aerospace and work with Marshalls, then this is something of real benefit. The other good point, like GS1's centre, is that it is not a showcase centre but a real product type environment.

Any Bloor Research member interested in knowing more about Ubisense, may be interested in looking at the Product Evaluation just completed—it should be posted in the next couple of weeks.

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