Book Image

Architecting the Industrial Internet

By : Robert Stackowiak, Shyam Varan Nath, Carla Romano
Book Image

Architecting the Industrial Internet

By: Robert Stackowiak, Shyam Varan Nath, Carla Romano

Overview of this book

The Industrial Internet or the IIoT has gained a lot of traction. Many leading companies are driving this revolution by connecting smart edge devices to cloud-based analysis platforms and solving their business challenges in new ways. To ensure a smooth integration of such machines and devices, sound architecture strategies based on accepted principles, best practices, and lessons learned must be applied. This book begins by providing a bird's eye view of what the IIoT is and how the industrial revolution has evolved into embracing this technology. It then describes architectural approaches for success, gathering business requirements, and mapping requirements into functional solutions. In a later chapter, many other potential use cases are introduced including those in manufacturing and specific examples in predictive maintenance, asset tracking and handling, and environmental impact and abatement. The book concludes by exploring evolving technologies that will impact IIoT architecture in the future and discusses possible societal implications of the Industrial Internet and perceptions regarding these projects. By the end of this book, you will be better equipped to embrace the benefits of the burgeoning IIoT.
Table of Contents (19 chapters)
Title Page
Credits
About the Authors
About the Reviewers
www.PacktPub.com
Customer Feedback
Preface

Evolving edge devices


In earlier chapters, we described the growing trend of computing activities taking place in smart edge devices, thus enabling immediate actions to take place prior to the transmission of data to the backend infrastructure. Some are now referring to this paradigm as fog computing. As this book was being published, consortia were in the initial stages of defining fog computing reference architectures and establishing standards through standards bodies.

Edge devices themselves are becoming smaller and consolidating. Previously, the controllers, HMIs, cameras, motion controls, and SCADA devices were physically separated and then networked together in field locations. Increasingly, these components reside in single units that also contain ever more powerful processors and field-programmable gate arrays (FPGAs) for customization.

The edge devices are sometimes deployed to locations where it is difficult to replace worn batteries that supply power. One source of the power drain...