Case study: sensonic GmbH
Sensonic is creating a cloud-based digital twin of the entire rail network.
Combining Sensonic and Barracuda Networks’ technologies enables ÖBB to use proactive monitoring of track and infrastructure conditions
Customer:
Sensonic GmbH provides optical
fiber track condition monitoring for asset management
of railways, railway traffic management and safety management
on railways.
Challenges:
The Sensonic Edge turns inactive fibers of
fiber optic cables into vibration sensors. One
device can cover up to 80 kilometres of track. The recorded data is
filtered and sent to the cloud for detailed analysis.
To do this, Sensonic needs a permanent, reliable
and secure connection to the public cloud around the
world.
Solution:
Barracuda CloudGen Firewall.
Barracuda Firewall Control Center.
Barracuda Secure Connector.
Benefits:
Easy and reliable implementation of Secure Connector devices that enable encrypted connections to the end customer’s public cloud anywhere in the world.
Automatic redirection to an alternative cloud entry point in the event of any failure.
Protecting public cloud infrastructure.
Innovation in rail transport and related areas is rare
Sensonic is a technology leader in the use of fibre optic sensing on railways.
Sensonic Edge devices have been developed together with their partners at Sintela according to the specific
requirements of rail transport. Sensonic’s solution generates huge amounts of highly accurate and extensive data. Sensonic’s core competence lies in the development of intelligent
algorithms for pre-processing and evaluating these data sets and then converting them into actionable information.
This information can be delivered to the customer in the form of customised reports, including, for example, heatmaps and reports that show changes in track condition.
“Our solution depends on persistent and ubiquitous connectivity to the public cloud for machine learning. Without the dedication and partnership that Barracuda has offered us in solving our challenges, we would not have been able to bring our current product offering to market.”
Director of Information Technology, Sensonic GmbH
Uses (just a few examples)
Real-time track condition monitoring
Sensonic’s Track Condition Monitoring Application helps track managers with targeted track maintenance.
Sensonic’s solution for this purpose provides comprehensive track condition information through
regular reports. They include heatmaps based on the Sonic Track Index, a reliable
indicator that highlights deteriorated areas. Sensonic’s solution continuously monitors the entire
track 24 hours a day, 7 days a week. With fiber optic sensing, using a single unlit fiber optic cable, it turns every working train into a measuring train at the same time.
Detection of dangerous track disturbances
The high sensitivity of Sensonic’s solution enables the detection of minimal vibration energies caused
by people moving near or directly on the track. Information about these events reduces the risk of danger to persons in the railway environment and vice versa.
Cable Theft Detection
Copper cable theft is a major problem for railway operators and is often the cause of even
more costly damage to fibre optic cabling due to careless digging. Sensonic’s solution
detects and locates vibrations caused by cable theft attempts in real time. This enables operators to take preventive measures much
earlier, often resulting in minimized financial and operational damage.
How Barracuda Networks helped
Sensonic Edge devices, deployed every 80 kilometres along the tracks, require a reliable and continuous connection to the public cloud that can be easily deployed and managed. At the same time, the advanced analytics
and machine learning algorithms that run individually for each line operator in the
public cloud must be protected from threats originating from the Internet.
On the public cloud side, next-gen Barracuda CloudGen Firewalls reliably protect
public cloud infrastructure from all types of Internet threats and terminate encrypted connections from Barracuda
Secure Connector devices. The cloud portion of the infrastructure protected by the Barracuda CloudGen Firewall is configured for each tenant railroad literally at the click of a button via Infrastructure-as-
process code templates. Sensonic developed these automation templates with the help of the team at Barracuda Networks,
to take full advantage of their expertise in cloud security and cloud automation.
The result is a highly secure and stable IIoT connectivity solution for each sensor module to the public cloud that is easy to set up and manage.
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