Moving to phase-two of its start-up plan, emerging company Reva Systems yesterday introduced a network appliance that it says will help manufacturers and other companies more cost effectively implement, scale and manage RFID deployments within and across distributed computing environments.
Reva's Tag Acquisition Processor (TAP) is a rack-mountable, hardened Linux-based device that creates an RFID infrastructure layer which logically resides above the reader layer and acts as an extension to an existing TCP/IP network. The product is critical to Reva's
goal of helping companies more cost effectively blend RFID into the fabric of the enterprise network by leveraging industry-standard tags, readers and protocols as part of a "Tag Acquisition Network" that can be rolled out in cookie cutter form across the manufacturing enterprise -- in warehouses, loading docks and throughout the extended value chain.
"Reva's position is to enable process improvements" relative to RFID deployment and management, noted Ashley Stephenson, Reva's chairman and CEO, in an interview. "We're not talking about building new applications but helping capture data consumed by applications that help companies get returns on their [RFID] investment."
And ROI is critical, given many manufacturers' inability to cost-justify RFID investments beyond mandate-driven initiatives. Already being piloted at a number of major consumer products and high-tech manufacturers such as Hewlett Packard Co. and systems integrators Accenture and IBM, TAP is intended to provide the infrastructure required to enable RFID to scale to levels that deliver process improvements to justify the dollars invested, Stephenson said.
For starters, TAP helps companies optimize available RF spectrum by limiting frequency interference. It also enables data integration with enterprise applications without the need for vendor-specific middleware. It supports standard and application-specific interfaces for RFID data access including ALE, JMS, SQL and SAP's AII. (SAP, in fact, recently certified that Reva's TAP works with its auto-ID infrastructure.)
Moreover, TAP provides intelligent location management services to enable readers to self-calibrate and for applications to see appropriately filtered data from observed events at key locations throughout the value chain. Having a distilled view of data is critical for analyzing the movement of goods from the warehouse into a distribution center and onto store shelves, analysts said.
On the operations side, Reva TAP offers real-time 7x24 failover redundancy -- if one appliance fails another on the network can immediately pick up its tasks, Stephenson said. TAP also comes with a highly graphical management console for configuring, commissioning and monitoring RFID devices, including mixed environments of EPCglobal Gen 1- and Gen 2-compliant RFID readers.
Given its broad array of capabilities, TAP isn't for casual "slap and ship" pilots hurriedly implemented to meet customer mandates, observers contend. "This is for more forward thinking companies -- it's a novel approach," noted John Fontanella, senior vice president and research director of supply chain services at Aberdeen Group in Boston.
"With RFID, it's been hellish trying to set up readers and get them calibrated," he noted. "It's done on a one-off basis -- you get one done and then go to another. A network approach that looks at RFID readers in total is intriguing."
Fontanella likens Reva's approach to moves made by Cisco Systems Inc. to add additional intelligence to the network, which helps enterprises more quickly identify and resolve distributed computing glitches. The management console's color-coded interface, moreover, provides an at-a-glance view of reader coverage to help quickly configure and re-position devices for optimal operation, he added.
"Interference is a big issue," Fontanella said. "Coordinating [management] in a central spot seems to be a natural," to eliminate reader contention for available bandwidth.
The approach also eliminates the need for middleware, which is proliferating throughout the application software segment, with each vendor plying its own flavor and approach. While solving inherent application interoperability woes, middleware adds architectural complexity and slows performance.
"What wasn't clear is if this level of intelligence would be added to the application or embedded in the reader," Fontanella said. "Now we see it in the network [via Reva]."
Founded 18 months ago by networking industry, Reva has received $6 million in venture capital funding from heavyweights Charles River Ventures and North Bridge Venture Partners. While working with any startup is risky, Fontanella thinks Reva's progressive approach should resonate with companies looking to cost-effectively scale RFID deployments across their extended value chain, with the realization that some if not all of the device-level technologies will be swapped out over time.
TAP and the management console are currently available. Base unit pricing starts at $9,995, with volume discounts.