There are three major ways to collect the data from equipment. Gateways can communicate with meters or machines that support a specific protocol such as Modbus, Ethernet/IP, or Profinet. A common device used in factories or buildings is the PLC which includes Ethernet, serial, and I/O for data collection. For example, to collect the temperature or rotation speed on a machine, users will need the I/O to acquire the sensor signals. Advantech’s edge gateway preinstalled EdgeLink software can help monitor these three data types. After collecting the data, the gateways can push the data to the cloud, database, and SCADA systems.