Unified Namespace (UNS)

The Unified Namespace (UNS) is the architectural heart of Proxus. It transforms a chaotic list of thousands of PLC tags into a structured, semantic hierarchy that the entire enterprise can understand.

Why UNS?

Before UNS

Point-to-point integrations create a web of dependencies:

Every new consumer requires a new integration.

After UNS

All producers publish to a single hierarchy. All consumers subscribe to what they need:

ISA-95 Hierarchy

Proxus supports a hierarchy based on the ISA-95 standard. Every data point gets a predictable address.

MQTT Topic Format

Proxus publishes data to MQTT topics with category separation:

Topic Structure

v1/{enterprise}/{site}/{area}/{processCell}/{equipmentModule}/{deviceName}/{category}/{metric}

Example

v1/acme/newyork/assembly/line01/robot_a/temp_sensor_01/telemetry/temperature
v1/acme/newyork/assembly/line01/robot_a/temp_sensor_01/state/_status

Wildcard Subscriptions

• v1/acme/newyork/# — All data from New York site
• v1/acme/+/assembly/+/+/+/telemetry/# — All telemetry from assembly areas
• v1/acme/newyork/assembly/line01/+/+/state/_status — All status from Line 01

JSON Payload Structure

Each message contains rich context:

{
"value": 45.2,
"timestamp": "2024-12-20T12:34:56.789Z",
"quality": "Good",
"source": "Proxus",
"dataType": "Float",
"context": {
"enterprise": "acme",
"site": "newyork",
"area": "assembly",
"processCell": "line01",
"equipmentModule": "robot_a",
"device": "temp_sensor_01",
"metric": "temperature"
}
}

SparkplugB Support

For environments requiring SparkplugB encoding, Proxus publishes to:

spBv1.0/{GroupId}/DDATA/{EdgeNodeId}/{DeviceId}

Features

• Device Birth/Death Certificates: Automatic lifecycle management
• Binary Encoding: Smaller payloads, faster parsing
• Metric Metadata: Data types, units, and quality flags

Performance & Optimization

For high-scale environments with thousands of devices, Proxus provides several optimization settings in the [UNS.Optimizations] section of the configuration.

Bandwidth Reduction

• Thin Payloads: Enabling TelemetryThinPayload removes the static context object from every telemetry message, significantly reducing bandwidth and CPU usage for consumers.
• On-Change Publishing: StatusOnChangeOnly ensures that device status (Online/Offline) is only published when it actually changes, preventing "Online" spam in the broker.

Throttling & Summaries

• Summary Intervals: Use SummaryIntervalMs (default: 5000) to control how often the system-wide _summary message is published.
• Hash-based Filtering: SummaryOnlyOnChange uses a fast hash check to skip publishing _summary messages if none of the underlying values have changed.

UNS Explorer

In the Proxus Management Console, the UNS Explorer visualizes this hierarchy in real-time. You can:

• Browse the full tree structure
• See live values and timestamps
• Filter by enterprise, site, or area
• Export metadata

Industry Use Cases

The Unified Namespace is the foundation for all Proxus vertical solutions:

• Smart Buildings: Mapping BACnet points, lighting status, and occupancy counts into building/floor/zone hierarchies.
• Manufacturing: Aligning PLC tags to ISA-95 equipment hierarchies for OEE and downtime analytics.
• Energy & Utilities: Organizing meter and grid data into site-wide energy models for ISO 50001 compliance.

Next Steps