Helm Chart

An Helm chart is a package manager for Kubernetes that simplifies the installation, configuration, and deployment of applications and services. It contains all the necessary Kubernetes manifests, configuration files, and dependencies required to run a particular application or service. One of the main advantages of Helm is that it allows to define the configuration of the installed resources in a single YAML file, called values.yaml. Helm provides great documentation on this process.

The Helm Chart of the United Manufacturing Hub is composed of both custom microservices and third-party applications. If you want a more in-depth view of the architecture of the United Manufacturing Hub, you can read the Architecture overview page.

Helm Chart structure

Custom microservices

The Helm Chart of the United Manufacturing Hub is composed of the following custom microservices:

• barcodereader: reads the input from a barcode reader and sends it to the MQTT broker for further processing.
• customMicroservice: a template for deploying any number of custom microservices.
• data-bridge: transfers data between two Kafka or MQTT brokers, transforming the data following the UNS data model.
• factoryinsight: provides REST endpoints to fetch data and calculate KPIs.
• MQTT Simulator: simulates sensors and sends the data to the MQTT broker for further processing.
• kafka-bridge: connects Kafka brokers on different Kubernetes clusters.
• kafkatopostgresql: stores the data from the Kafka broker in a PostgreSQL database.
• mqtt-kafka-bridge: connects the MQTT broker and the Kafka broker.
• opcuasimulator: simulates OPC UA servers and sends the data to the MQTT broker for further processing.
• packmlmqttsimulator: simulates a PackML state machine and sends the data to the MQTT broker for further processing.
• sensorconnect: connects to a sensor and sends the data to the MQTT and Kafka brokers for further processing.
• tulip-connector: exposes internal APIs to the internet, especially tailored for the Tulip platform.

Third-party applications

The Helm Chart of the United Manufacturing Hub is composed of the following third-party applications:

• Grafana: a visualization and analytics software.
• HiveMQ: an MQTT broker.
• Node-RED: a programming tool for wiring together hardware devices, APIs and online services.
• Redis: an in-memory data structure store, used for cache.
• RedPanda: a Kafka-compatible distributed event streaming platform.
• RedPanda Console: a web-based user interface for RedPanda.
• TimescaleDB: an open-source time-series SQL database.

Configuration options

The Helm Chart of the United Manufacturing Hub can be configured by setting values in the values.yaml file. This file has three main sections that can be used to configure the applications:

• customers: contains the definition of the customers that will be created during the installation of the Helm Chart. This section is optional, and it’s used only by factoryinsight.
• _000_commonConfig: contains the basic configuration options to customize the United Manufacturing Hub, and it’s divided into sections that group applications with similar scope, like the ones that compose the infrastructure or the ones responsible for data processing. This is the section that should be mostly used to configure the microservices.
• _001_customMicroservices: used to define the configuration of custom microservices that are not included in the Helm Chart.

After those three sections, there are the specific sections for each microservice, which contain their advanced configuration. This is the so called Danger Zone, because the values in those sections should not be changed, unlsess you absolutely know what you are doing.

When a parameter contains . (dot) characters, it means that it is a nested parameter. For example, in the tls.factoryinsight.cert parameter the cert parameter is nested inside the tls.factoryinsight section, and the factoryinsight section is nested inside the tls section.

Customers

The customers section contains the definition of the customers that will be created during the installation of the Helm Chart. It’s a simple dictionary where the key is the name of the customer, and the value is the password.

For example, the following snippet creates two customers:

customers:
  customer1: password1
  customer2: password2

Common configuration options

The _000_commonConfig contains the basic configuration options to customize the United Manufacturing Hub, and it’s divided into sections that group applications with similar scope.

The following table lists the configuration options that can be set in the _000_commonConfig section:

Data model v2

The _000_commonConfig.datamodel_v2 section contains the configuration related to the UNS data model.

The following table lists the configuration options that can be set in the _000_commonConfig.datamodel_v2 section:

Bridges

The _000_commonConfig.datamodel_v2.bridges section contains a list of configuration options for the data bridge. Each item in the list represents a data bridge instance, and the following table lists the configuration options that can be set in each item:

Data sources

The _000_commonConfig.datasources section contains the configuration of the microservices used to acquire data, like the ones that connect to a sensor or simulate data.

The following table lists the configuration options that can be set in the _000_commonConfig.datasources section:

Barcode reader

The _000_commonConfig.datasources.barcodereader section contains the configuration of the barcodereader microservice.

The following table lists the configuration options that can be set in the _000_commonConfig.datasources.barcodereader section:

IoT Sensors MQTT

The _000_commonConfig.datasources.iotsensorsmqtt section contains the configuration of the IoTSensorsMQTT microservice.

The following table lists the configuration options that can be set in the _000_commonConfig.datasources.iotsensorsmqtt section:

OPC UA Simulator

The _000_commonConfig.datasources.opcuasimulator section contains the configuration of the opcuasimulator microservice.

The following table lists the configuration options that can be set in the _000_commonConfig.datasources.opcuasimulator section:

PackML MQTT Simulator

The _000_commonConfig.datasources.packmlmqttsimulator section contains the configuration of the packmlsimulator microservice.

The following table lists the configuration options that can be set in the _000_commonConfig.datasources.packmlmqttsimulator section:

Sensor connect

The _000_commonConfig.datasources.sensorconnect section contains the configuration of the sensorconnect microservice.

The following table lists the configuration options that can be set in the _000_commonConfig.datasources.sensorconnect section:

Data processing

The _000_commonConfig.dataprocessing section contains the configuration of the microservices used to process data, such as the nodered microservice.

The following table lists the configuration options that can be set in the _000_commonConfig.dataprocessing section:

Node-RED

The _000_commonConfig.dataprocessing.nodered section contains the configuration of the nodered microservice.

The following table lists the configuration options that can be set in the _000_commonConfig.dataprocessing.nodered section:

Infrastructure

The _000_commonConfig.infrastructure section contains the configuration of the microservices responsible for connecting all the other microservices, such as the MQTT broker and the Kafka broker.

The following table lists the configuration options that can be set in the _000_commonConfig.infrastructure section:

MQTT

The _000_commonConfig.infrastructure.mqtt section contains the configuration of the MQTT broker.

The following table lists the configuration options that can be set in the _000_commonConfig.infrastructure.mqtt section:

Kafka

The _000_commonConfig.infrastructure.kafka section contains the configuration of the Kafka broker and related services, like mqttkafkabridge, kafkatopostgresql and the Kafka console.

The following table lists the configuration options that can be set in the _000_commonConfig.infrastructure.kafka section:

Data storage

The _000_commonConfig.datastorage section contains the configuration of the microservices used to store data. Specifically, it controls the following microservices:

• cache
• database
• factoryinsight
• grafana
• kafka-to-postgresql
• mqtt-broker

If you want to specifically configure one of these microservices, you can do so in their respective sections in the Danger Zone.

The following table lists the configurable parameters of the _000_commonConfig.datastorage section.

Kafka Bridge

The _000_commonConfig.kafkaBridge section contains the configuration of the kafka-bridge microservice, responsible for bridging Kafka brokers in different Kubernetes clusters.

The following table lists the configurable parameters of the _000_commonConfig.kafkaBridge section.

Topic Map

The topicmap parameter is a list of topic maps, each of which contains the following parameters:

For more information about the topic maps, see the kafka-bridge documentation.

Debug

The _000_commonConfig.debug section contains the debug configuration for all the microservices. This values should not be enabled in production.

The following table lists the configurable parameters of the _000_commonConfig.debug section.

Tulip Connector

The _000_commonConfig.tulipconnector section contains the configuration of the tulip-connector microservice, responsible for connecting a Tulip instance with the United Manufacturing Hub.

The following table lists the configurable parameters of the _000_commonConfig.tulipconnector section.

Custom microservices configuration

The _001_customConfig section contains a list of custom microservices definitions. It can be used to deploy any application of your choice, which can be configured using the following parameters:

Danger zone

The next sections contain a more advanced configuration of the microservices. Usually, changing the values of the previous sections is enough to run the United Manufacturing Hub. However, you may need to adjust some of the values below if you want to change the default behavior of the microservices.

Everything below this point should not be changed, unless you know what you are doing.

Sections

barcodereader

The barcodereader section contains the advanced configuration of the barcodereader microservice.

databridge

The databridge section contains the advanced configuration of the databridge microservice.

factoryinsight

The factoryinsight section contains the advanced configuration of the factoryinsight microservice.

grafana

The grafana section contains the advanced configuration of the grafana microservice. This is based on the official Grafana Helm chart. For more information about the parameters, please refer to the official documentation.

Here are only the values different from the default ones.

datasources

The datasources section contains the configuration of the datasources provisioning. See the Grafana documentation for more information.

datasources.yaml:
  apiVersion: 1
  datasources:
    - name: umh-v2-datasource
      # <string, required> datasource type. Required
      type: umh-v2-datasource
      # <string, required> access mode. proxy or direct (Server or Browser in the UI). Required
      access: proxy
      # <int> org id. will default to orgId 1 if not specified
      orgId: 1
      url: "http://united-manufacturing-hub-factoryinsight-service/"
      jsonData:
        customerID: $FACTORYINSIGHT_CUSTOMERID
        apiKey: $FACTORYINSIGHT_PASSWORD
        baseURL: "http://united-manufacturing-hub-factoryinsight-service/"
        apiKeyConfigured: true
      version: 1
      # <bool> allow users to edit datasources from the UI.
      isDefault: false
      editable: false
    # <string, required> name of the datasource. Required
    - name: umh-datasource
      # <string, required> datasource type. Required
      type: umh-datasource
      # <string, required> access mode. proxy or direct (Server or Browser in the UI). Required
      access: proxy
      # <int> org id. will default to orgId 1 if not specified
      orgId: 1
      url: "http://united-manufacturing-hub-factoryinsight-service/"
      jsonData:
        customerId: $FACTORYINSIGHT_CUSTOMERID
        apiKey: $FACTORYINSIGHT_PASSWORD
        serverURL: "http://united-manufacturing-hub-factoryinsight-service/"
        apiKeyConfigured: true
      version: 1
      # <bool> allow users to edit datasources from the UI.
      isDefault: false
      editable: false
    - name: UMH TimescaleDB 
      type: postgres
      url: united-manufacturing-hub:5432
      user: $GRAFANAREADER_USER
      isDefault: true
      secureJsonData:
        password: $GRAFANAREADER_PASSWORD
      jsonData:
        database: umh_v2
        sslmode: 'require' # disable/require/verify-ca/verify-full
        maxOpenConns: 100 # Grafana v5.4+
        maxIdleConns: 100 # Grafana v5.4+
        maxIdleConnsAuto: true # Grafana v9.5.1+
        connMaxLifetime: 14400 # Grafana v5.4+
        postgresVersion: 1300 # 903=9.3, 904=9.4, 905=9.5, 906=9.6, 1000=10
        timescaledb: true

envValueFrom

The envValueFrom section contains the configuration of the environment variables to add to the Pod, from a secret or a configmap.

env

The env section contains the configuration of the environment variables to add to the Pod.

extraInitContainers

The extraInitContainers section contains the configuration of the extra init containers to add to the Pod.

The init-plugins container is used to install the default plugins shipped with the UMH version of Grafana without the need to have an internet connection. See the documentation for a list of the plugins.

- image: unitedmanufacturinghub/grafana-umh:1.2.0
  name: init-plugins
  imagePullPolicy: IfNotPresent
  command: ['sh', '-c', 'cp -r /plugins /var/lib/grafana/']
  volumeMounts:
    - name: storage
      mountPath: /var/lib/grafana

grafana.ini

The grafana.ini section contains the configuration of the grafana.ini file. See the Grafana documentation for more information.

paths:
  data: /var/lib/grafana/data
  logs: /var/log/grafana
  plugins: /var/lib/grafana/plugins
  provisioning: /etc/grafana/provisioning
database:
  host: united-manufacturing-hub
  user: "grafana"
  name: "grafana"
  password: "changeme"
  ssl_mode: require
  type: postgres

iotsensorsmqtt

The iotsensorsmqtt section contains the configuration of the IoT Sensors MQTT microservice.

kafkabridge

The kafkabridge section contains the configuration of the Kafka bridge.

kafkatopostgresql

The kafkatopostgresql section contains the configuration of the Kafka to PostgreSQL microservice.

kafkatopostgresqlv2

The kafkatopostgresqlv2 section contains the configuration of the Kafka to PostgreSQL v2 microservice.

metrics

The metrics section contains the configuration of the metrics CronJob that sends anonymous usage data.

mqtt_broker

The mqtt_broker section contains the configuration of the MQTT broker.

initContainer

The initContainer section contains the configuration for the init containers. By default, the hivemqextensioninit container is used to initialize the HiveMQ extensions.

initContainer:
  hivemqextensioninit:
    image:
      repository: unitedmanufacturinghub/hivemq-init
      tag: 2.0.0
      pullPolicy: IfNotPresent

mqttkafkabridge

The mqttkafkabridge section contains the configuration of the MQTT-Kafka bridge.

nodered

The nodered section contains the configuration of the Node-RED microservice.

env

The env section contains the environment variables to add to the Pod.

opcuasimulator

The opcuasimulator section contains the configuration of the OPC UA Simulator microservice.

packmlmqttsimulator

The packmlmqttsimulator section contains the configuration of the PackML MQTT Simulator microservice.

env

The env section contains the environment variables to add to the Pod.

redis

The redis section contains the configuration of the Redis microservice. This is based on the official Redis Helm chart. For more information about the parameters, see the official documentation.

Here are only the values different from the default ones.

commonConfiguration

The commonConfiguration section contains the common configuration to be added into the ConfigMap. For more information, see the documentation.

# Enable AOF https://redis.io/topics/persistence#append-only-file
appendonly yes
# Disable RDB persistence, AOF persistence already enabled.
save ""
# Backwards compatability with Redis version 6.*
replica-ignore-disk-write-errors yes

redpanda

The redpanda section contains the configuration of the Kafka broker. This is based on the RedPanda chart. For more information about the parameters, see the official documentation.

Here are only the values different from the default ones.

console

The console section contains the configuration of the RedPanda Console.

For more information about the parameters, see the official documentation.

sensorconnect

The sensorconnect section contains the configuration of the Sensorconnect microservice.

serviceAccount

The serviceAccount section contains the configuration of the service account. See the Kubernetes documentation for more information.

timescaledb-single

The timescaledb-single section contains the configuration of the TimescaleDB microservice. This is based on the official TimescaleDB Helm chart. For more information about the parameters, see the official documentation.

Here are only the values different from the default ones.

postInit

The postInit parameter is a list of references to sources that contain post init scripts. The scripts are executed after the database is initialized.

postInit:
  - configMap:
      name: {{ resource type="configmap" name="database" }}
      optional: false
  - secret:
      name: {{ resource type="secret" name="database" }}
      optional: false

tulipconnector

The tulipconnector section contains the configuration of the Tulip Connector microservice.

env

The env section contains the configuration of the environment variables to add to the Pod.

What’s next

• Take a look at the overview of the architecture.
• Deep dive into the microservices’ reference.