V-ERA: Open Fiber's Smart City Data Platform
Agile Lab has designed and developed an advanced new platform for acquiring, processing, monitoring, and managing Internet of Things (IoT) data for Open Fiber. This innovative platform, named Village Eco Rural Application (V-ERA), was created with the specific goal of revolutionizing smart city management.
The main objective of the V-ERA project is to develop a modern data platform capable of managing real-time data from different sources, supporting advanced applications such as smart city management. For this purpose, the adoption of cutting-edge technologies is crucial to ensure high levels of reliability, scalability, and throughput, while maintaining low latency.
Project Benefits
Energy Efficiency
Accurate measurement of electricity consumption enables optimized energy use, reducing waste and improving overall public lighting efficiency.
Real-Time Monitoring
Installed sensors allow real-time monitoring of infrastructure conditions, facilitating preventive maintenance and reducing response times in case of malfunctions
Sustainability
Optimizing energy consumption helps reduce environmental impact, promoting sustainable urban development
Replicability
The success of the pilot project in Pitigliano can serve as a model for other Italian municipalities, fostering the nationwide adoption of smart city technologies
A Pilot Project
The pilot project for creating a smart city based on the V-ERA platform was launched in the municipality of Pitigliano, in the province of Grosseto.
This project marks a significant step towards innovation and the digitalization of urban infrastructure, transforming Pitigliano into a true open-air laboratory for experimenting with advanced technologies.
Sensors for Measuring Electricity Consumption
External suppliers installed sensors across the municipal area to measure electricity consumption for public lighting. These sensors are essential for monitoring energy use in real time, optimizing consumption, and improving energy efficiency.
The data collected by the sensors is sent to the new data platform, where it is analyzed to provide useful information for managing and maintaining the public lighting infrastructure.
ENEA and the PELL Initiative
This project is linked to ENEA (the Italian National Agency for New Technologies, Energy and Sustainable Economic Development), through the PELL (Public Energy Living Lab) initiative, which aims to innovate the management processes of energy-intensive and strategic infrastructure for urban regeneration in a smart city context.
The PELL platform is a tool for collecting, organizing, managing, processing, and evaluating data related to public lighting, enabling efficient and effective infrastructure management.
This integrated approach enables the rapid identification of inefficiencies and prompt intervention to improve the quality of services provided to citizens.
“The development of the V-ERA IoT platform marked a key evolution of our Data Platform, transforming it into a true Data Streaming Platform. This transition represents a major milestone in the ongoing consolidation of our solution to support a fully Data-Driven company. V-ERA was created as a unique, centralized tool to effectively address the growing market demand for Smart City–oriented solutions and real-time device management. Its introduction also responded to internal company needs, as we leverage the same architecture to interpret and organize IoT data with the goal of optimizing consumption and sizing within our network hubs. The qualified support of Agile Lab, combined with their expertise in specialized topics and innovative technologies such as AWS IoT Core, Snowflake, and Real-Time Change Data Capture, enabled us to respond to our needs quickly and effectively, delivering a platform that is both scalable and resilient.”
Implementation and Execution
Automation
To ensure the efficiency and reliability of the software and platform resource lifecycle, automated tools for testing and deployment have been introduced and codified.
This has enabled efficient management of all software lifecycle phases—from code writing to production deployment. Key benefits of this approach include:
- Automated provisioning and configuration reduce implementation times and minimize human error, improving overall process efficiency.
- Continuous Integration (CI) allows frequent merging of code changes into the main repository, automatically running tests to ensure the code is always in a releasable state.
- Automated testing ensures fast and reliable execution of a series of tests on each new software version, identifying and resolving bugs before release.
- Continuous Deployment (CD) automates the software release process, reducing release times and minimizing human errors.
Modularity and Declarative Approach
The platform’s architecture was designed using modularity and replicability concepts, allowing components to be easily added or removed.
Special emphasis is placed on using a declarative approach. Data schemas and descriptors are defined and used throughout the codebase as a “single source of truth.” This simplifies the management and updating of definitions and ensures that all applications and processes follow the same definitions and rules.
V-ERA is characterized by high modularity by design. It is divided into independent modules, which can be developed, tested, and deployed separately. This facilitates system maintenance and updates, reducing development time and improving software quality.
The declarative approach, which was emphasized during the implementation phase, allows easy duplication of infrastructure and configurations, simplifying platform expansion and the implementation of new use cases and applications.
Infrastructure as Code
Another fundamental aspect of the project is the adoption of Infrastructure as Code (IaC) technologies, which allow infrastructure to be defined and managed through code. This approach offers numerous advantages:
Versioning: Infrastructure defined as code can be versioned and managed like any other source code, allowing changes to be tracked and easily reverting to previous versions in case of problems.
Consistency: IaC technologies ensure the infrastructure is always configured consistently, reducing configuration errors and improving system reliability.
Adopted Methodologies
The V-ERA platform uses a combination of tools already integrated into the existing infrastructure and new technologies to meet the advanced technological needs of the solution.
This mix of advanced technologies enables the creation of a robust, scalable, and easily monitored platform capable of handling large volumes of real-time data and seamlessly integrating with the client’s existing infrastructure.
DataOps and DevOps
Best practices and modern principles of software and data engineering—such as Data Operations (DataOps) and Development Operations (DevOps)—are an integral part of the design and development of the new V-ERA platform.
The adoption of these methodologies enables effective management of the platform's software and resource lifecycle.
In particular, the combination of data management and software engineering practices improves the quality, speed, and reliability of data processes. This ensures that the information received is always accurate, up-to-date, and easily accessible.
Another key goal of this approach is to encourage effective collaboration between development and operations teams. Software development, testing, and deployment processes are thus automated and enhanced.
The result is a reduction in time-to-market for new features, improved software quality, and increased operational efficiency.
Continuous Data
The V-ERA platform is designed to handle large volumes of data from multiple sensing devices installed in a smart city. Data processing is continuous rather than batch-based or at regular intervals. This is crucial to ensure that all collected information is processed and analyzed in real time.
In this context, it is particularly important to consider the concept of lead time—the period between the start and end of a data management process, including all intermediate steps such as acquisition, processing, analysis, and distribution.
A shorter lead time means that information can be obtained and used more quickly, providing more effective insights and enabling timely and informed decision-making. This is especially important in smart city environments, where rapid data access can significantly affect resource management and the quality of services offered to citizens.
Monitoring Expandibility
Another crucial aspect is how easily the platform can be monitored and expanded. This means that the client can easily add new sensing devices or features without needing to redesign the entire infrastructure. Furthermore, the use of low-code and no-code tools facilitates integration with new data sources, making the platform highly adaptable to future needs.
Automation and Infrastructure as Code
The introduction of a testing and automatic deployment pipeline, based on “Infrastructure as Code” (IaC) technologies, significantly enhances the efficiency and reliability of the platform's development and maintenance processes. This approach allows for the rapid implementation of new features and quick resolution of any issues, reducing downtime and improving overall service quality.
Technical Requirements of the Solution
The V-ERA platform design uses a combination of tools already integrated into the existing infrastructure and new technologies to meet the advanced technological needs of the solution.
This mix of advanced technologies enables the creation of a robust, scalable, and easily monitored platform capable of handling large volumes of real-time data and seamlessly integrating with the client’s existing infrastructure.
Scalability and Throughput
Scalability is essential for the V-ERA platform to grow and adapt to future needs without compromising performance. This is achieved through the following architectural features:
Modular Architecture: The platform is designed with a modular architecture that allows components to be easily added or removed based on requirements.
Cloud Elasticity: By leveraging cloud solutions like Snowflake and AWS IoT Core, the platform can automatically scale computing and storage resources in response to workload variations.
Load Balancing: Load balancing mechanisms have been implemented to distribute requests evenly across the platform’s components, preventing overloads and ensuring optimal performance.
Distributed Architecture: The platform uses a distributed architecture that allows data to be processed in parallel across multiple nodes, significantly increasing throughput.
Conclusion
For the new V-ERA platform, the pilot project in Pitigliano is just the beginning of a journey toward innovation and the digitalization of urban infrastructure. The potential future developments of the platform and the implemented technologies are many and promise further benefits for both the client and local communities.
The innovation at the heart of a project of this scale offers a wide range of possibilities for the development of new features and use cases. These include monitoring environmental and public building data, implementing artificial intelligence algorithms for data analysis and energy consumption forecasting, and developing mobile applications for citizens to simplify access to smart city services and information.
In summary, the future potential of the platform is vast and promises additional benefits in terms of efficiency, sustainability, and urban quality of life. The flexibility and scalability of the solution make it easy to adapt to future needs, ensuring a competitive advantage in the network infrastructure and smart city market.
Open Fiber and the FTTH Market in Italy
Open Fiber S.p.A. is an Italian company operating as a wholesale provider in the fiber-to-the-home (FTTH) network infrastructure market.
The FTTH market in Italy is rapidly expanding, with Open Fiber playing a leading role. The company has won numerous tenders for the construction of networks in urban and rural areas, significantly contributing to the spread of ultra-broadband across the country. This context of growth and innovation has made Open Fiber an ideal partner for the development of advanced solutions such as the new real-time data platform.
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