24th June 2021 (Europe 1)

Scope

MindSphere Remote Service (MRS) offers you secure remote access to your and your customers’ on-site assets. It provides easy setup of asset-specific communication protocols such as remote desktop connections and enables updates and changes of asset configurations. Access to log and status data and File Transfer are supported as well.

These release notes are relevant for MindSphere Remote Service (MRS) region Europe 1 Release in June 2021 with version "V1801.CW.EU1.N0624".

MindSphere Remote Service

Applicable for

  • MindAccess IoT Value Plan

What's new?

MindSphere Remote Service (MRS) is an add-on offering you secure remote access to your and your customers’ on-site assets (e.g. machines) for the following key use cases:

  • Service assets via Remote Login to quickly perform diagnostic tasks or change or update configurations or resolve incidents.

  • Transfer data from remote assets onto a service person's Operator PC for further analysis or deliver data or files from service person's Operator PC on to remote assets for update or configuration purposes.

  • Engineer assets from remote instead of running your engineering tool locally within a serviced customer's network.

MRS uses tunnel technology, thereby providing an additional level of security for meeting regulatory or market constraints for remote connectivity and data transfer.

MRS offers both a comprehensive functional user interface (MRS V1.0) as well as a workflow-driven user interface (MRS V2.0) covering most service tasks.

System Requirements for MindSphere Remote Service (MRS)

Browser-based access to MindSphere Remote Service App

  • Microsoft Windows TM 10 version 1909: Google Chrome TM (version 68 or newer)

  • recommended screen resolution: 1280x1024 and 1920x1080 with zoom level 100%

Requirements for service personnel's Operator PCs hosting MRS Operator Client (entry point for secure remote service connections)

  • Operator Client can be downloaded from MRS

  • Validated Hardware

    • Processor: 32-bit or x64-based (Intel or AMD)

    • Display size / resolution: 1280x1024 and 1920x1080 with zoom level 100%*

    • Disk space occupied by Operator Client: 32MB

  • Validated Operating Systems and Browsers

    • Microsoft Windows TM 10 Version 1909

    • Google Chrome TM version 68 or newer

Requirements for Serviced Assets hosting MRS Device Client (end point for secure remote service connection)

  • Device Client can be downloaded from MRS

  • Validated Hardware

    • Processor: 32-bit or x64-based (Intel or AMD)

    • RAM: 0.5GB

    • Disk space occupied by Device Client: 32MB

  • Validated Operating Systems

    • Microsoft Windows TM 10 Version 1909

    • Linux ® Debian 9

    • Linux ® RedHat 8

Requirements for Remote Service protocols

  • Operating system of Operator PC must provide clients for the used outgoing Remote Login protocols (e.g. RDP, VNC), whilst Engineering Tools used remotely on Operator PC typically have built-in clients for such protocols  

  • Operating system of Serviced Assets must provide servers for the incoming Remote Login protocols (e.g. RDP, VNC) or for the incoming Remote Engineering protocols

  • Native Remote Desktop Protocol (RDP) can only be launched from WindowsTM based Operator PCs supporting this Remote Login protocol

  • The download package of the Operator Client contains a Windows driver (installer file MRSTransparentProxy.msi) for Proxy-Unaware protocol

  • Remote Engineering via Proxy-Unaware protocol is only available on WindowsTM based Operator PCs

Known issues

  • There is no auto-assignment of RDP (and Ping) to secondary assets. These must be assigned manually via MRS Protocol Applications

  • Assets may be serviced without upfront registration by means of On-Demand Devices. Such On-Demand Devices have an expiration date, and they will show up in the MRS asset tree until then. The expiration date is not enforced, so manual de-registration is necessary.

  • Connectivity status of secondary assets behind a gateway might not be shown as "connected", even though the secondary asset can be accessed.

  • Configuration changes are tracked in audit trail and system logs. Selected changes could be also be propagated via email notifications, which are not available for connection establishment or file transfers.