APEX IoT recipe

So, This happened.

Time to slap a sticker on this one. Not because I can, because it works ( and I can ). Stay Tuned... #orclapex #makerboard pic.twitter.com/Qxt5YBtXcT

— Jason Aughenbaugh (@wileecoyote_) December 4, 2017

The History:
  Over a year ago (while with Insum) there was an announcement brought to us by Danny Boivin (@DannyBoivin), detailing a new kickstarter program for a maker board that promised a lot.  The main promise was an x86 based maker-board, similar to Arduino or RPi but better.  Well, they delivered.  This year Udoo released their x86 line of single board computers.  I say it is a line because there are options, and more options, but four main boards with a lot of extras. 
  What I saw in this and a reason to buy is a solution to an interesting problem (or at least a good opportunity).  How do we get Application Express, and an Oracle database to interact with an IoT project. It also expands the Arduino maker side of the board with additional pinouts from the x86 core.
  This is why I bought in.


Recipe for APEX IoT:

• 1+ udoo x86 SBC ( I am using the Advanced Plus board for experimentation)
• + is cool because apparently you can cluster these things for more fun
• Connect your stuff (not all required but I am testing after all)
• M.2 Wireless / BT4
• M.2 SSD
• SATA SSD
• 32GB eMMC (integrated on 2 of the base boards)
• 64GB micro SD
• Choose your OS
• Ubuntu 16 LTS and Windows 10 are recommended but not the only options by far
• I'm using a hard drive for each but primarily Win 10 Pro
• Install Software
• Oracle Database 11g Express Edition 64bit
• Oracle Application Express v5.1.3
• Arduino IDE
• The maker side of this board uses an Intel Curie processor (Arduino 101)
• Python 2.x.x (64bit)
• pyserial
• cx_oracle
• pyfirmata
• Any other stuff you need (SQL Developer, Atom, etc)

  That's it for the environment the next thing is the theory of operations.  If you are already doing IoT with a regular Computer (with Apex) and an Arduino UNO then you are way ahead of me and please pipe up on what you've accomplished.

  Also if you are a newbie like me to using a lot of this stuff you can check out this book on getting started with Python for Arduino.

• Python Programming for Arduino by Pratik Desai

  For me the approach I have is two-fold.

• Using a python script to reference Oracle data to make the Arduino do work 
• This is my first set of test cases
• Oracle Initiated function : Running Python from Scheduler
• Maybe generating the python code prior to running it
• This is the ultimate goal

  So there you have it, the first maker-board that has the ability to run Oracle and APEX in the same hardware. Even if it is just consolidating the hardware side of it, it works. 

  More to come as I have it to give. 

 

Cheers!