Connect - Universal Data Collection
Connect is your gateway to bringing data from any source into MaestroHub. Whether you're working with industrial PLCs, IoT sensors, enterprise databases, or cloud services, Connect provides pre-built connectors that eliminate the complexity of integration.
Why Connect?
Traditional industrial integrations require custom development, protocol expertise, and ongoing maintenance. Connect changes this by offering:
- No-code configuration – Set up connections through an intuitive interface without writing code
- Native protocol support – Built-in connectors for the most common industrial and enterprise systems
- Secure by default – TLS encryption, authentication, and credential management built-in
- Reusable configurations – Create connection profiles once, use them across multiple pipelines
- Production-ready – Battle-tested connectors designed for reliability and performance
How Connect Works
Connect operates through three key concepts:
1. Connection Profiles
Define how to reach a system – broker URLs, database credentials, protocol settings. Create once, reuse everywhere.
2. Functions
Define what data to read or write – tag subscriptions, SQL queries, MQTT topics. These are reusable building blocks you configure per connection.
3. Pipeline Integration
Use your functions in Orchestrate pipelines to trigger data collection, transform results, and route data to its destination.
Connection Statuses
Every connection profile has a runtime state that reflects its current condition. Understanding these statuses helps you monitor and troubleshoot your integrations.
| Status | Description |
|---|---|
| Idle | The connection is registered but not actively running. This is the initial state before a connection is started, or after it has been manually stopped. |
| Connecting | The connection is in the process of establishing communication with the target system. |
| Connected | The connection is active and healthy. Data collection and function execution are fully operational. |
| Disconnected | The connection has lost communication with the target system. MaestroHub will automatically attempt to reconnect. |
| Reconnecting | An automatic reconnection attempt is in progress after a disconnection. |
| Failed | Repeated reconnection attempts have failed and the circuit breaker has tripped. The connection will not retry until it is manually restarted or the circuit breaker resets. |
| Suspended | The connection has been intentionally paused by an operator. No data collection or reconnection attempts occur while suspended. See Connection Suspension below. |
Connection Suspension
Suspension allows operators to intentionally pause a connection without deleting or reconfiguring it. This is useful during planned maintenance windows, infrastructure changes, or when you need to temporarily stop data collection from a specific source.
When you suspend a connection:
- All active communication is gracefully stopped
- Automatic reconnection is disabled
- A suspension reason is recorded for audit purposes
- Functions targeting the suspended connection will not execute
To resume a suspended connection, use the Resume action. The connection will return to the Idle state and can be started again normally. The circuit breaker and reconnection counters are reset on resume, giving the connection a clean start.
Connection Status History
MaestroHub records every state transition for each connection, building a complete audit trail of connection health over time. The Connection Health dashboard provides:
- Status Timeline — A visual bar showing how the connection spent its time across different states over a selected period
- State Change Events — A chronological list of every status transition, including error messages and suspension reasons
- Uptime Statistics — Calculated uptime percentage, failure counts, and average recovery times
- Failure Tracking — Connections with the most failures are highlighted so you can prioritize remediation
You can access status history from the Health tab on any connection profile, or view the system-wide Connection Health page for an overview of all connections.
Getting Started
Choose the connector that matches your data source:
- Browse the connector documentation to understand capabilities
- Create a connection profile with your system's credentials
- Define functions to specify what data to collect
- Build pipelines in Orchestrate to put your data to work
Each connector guide includes detailed configuration references, security best practices, and real-world examples to help you get up and running quickly.
Once you've connected your data sources, explore Compose to contextualize your data with ISA-95 models, or jump straight into Orchestrate to build your first data pipeline.