FEATURE INDUSTRIAL INTERNET OF THINGS
The Industrial Internet of Things (IIoT) will result in ‘smarter’ automation, where ‘Things’ share information with other ‘Things’
achieved by Naming and Number Authorities, with the aid of Network Administrators, but this will likely be an impediment as Things are added at an unprecedented rate. 2: Discovering Things and the data they possess - Once a Thing can be identified, the next challenge is how other interested parties will discover that it exists and what data it possesses. However, balancing ease of discovery with the rigid constraints of security will be fundamental to the success of IIoT and must be achievable without a PhD in cyber security. 3: Managing massive amounts
THE IMPORTANCE of ‘Things’
There are many challenges that need to be faced when creating the IIoT – the Industrial Internet of Things - from coping with the enormous amounts of data to security
B
y Internet-enabling the hardware and software components (the
‘Things’) of an automation system, the Industrial Internet of Things (IIoT) will result in ‘smarter’ automation where ‘Things’ share information with other ‘Things’, adapting their behaviour to ensure the highest levels of performance. However, the biggest challenge will be
seamlessly Internet-enabling the Things at the edge of the network – there are trillions that contain one or many data points that may need to be analysed and combined into information. So how do you manage the interchange of data between the mechanical, digital and human components of an industrial automation process? Several factors are impacting the
scale and speed of the creation of the IIoT. For a start, new ‘big data’ software vendors are looking to provide products to consolidate data, unify legacy solutions, and bridge the gap between external and internal operations. In addition, the cost of hardware technology is going down, allowing for unlocking of previously unavailable data from low-level sensors. Due to our reliance on internet technologies, the next generation of industrial engineers are growing up with the assumption that industrial data will be available, rich, easy to use, and
28 NOVEMBER 2015 | DESIGN SOLUTIONS
everywhere. Furthermore, multi-site data connectivity will assist with strategies at the enterprise level, with advantages to be gained by moving beyond traditional organisational boundaries to use and involve third parties.
THE CHALLENGES 1: Identifying Things within the Internet - For Things to communicate with each other, they must be uniquely identifiable within the Internet. Historically achieved through an Internet Protocol (IP) address, focus is now on adopting the Ipv6 standard, which defines a 128-bit address capable of uniquely identifying 340 undecillionth (340 x 1036
“The biggest challenge will be seamlessly Internet-
enabling the ‘Things’ at the edge of the network - there are trillions that contain one or more data points that may need to be analysed”
) addressable
items. This is compared with only four billion addressable items using today’s Ipv4 standard. However, while this will more than cover the requirements of IIoT, it will be difficult – if not impossible – to manage this effectively on a global scale. Such tasks have typically been
of data - Trillions of Things will be producing data points which will need to be collected, analysed and possibly archived. Moving this amount of data over the Internet will consume new levels of bandwidth. Furthermore, archiving this data for future analysis will require massive amounts of data storage and a new generation of scalable analytical applications capable of honing in on individual points of interest. 4: Navigating connectivity outages - The Things that make up IIoT, as well as the communication mediums that link them together, will not be available 100% of the time, resulting in intermittent or even long term outages. This could severely impact systems where data loss is unacceptable or where variances in the data needs to be known in real-time. 5: Integrating existing infrastructure into new IIoT strategies - For decades, Industrial Things have made data accessible over private, site networks, through the implementation of open or proprietary protocols. In the past, complexities such as security have largely been ignored in order to achieve optimisation and integration between dissimilar industrial systems, within a private environment. Given that the typical lifecycle for
industrial Things exceeds 20
years, there will be an expectation to integrate the existing into new IIoT strategies.
Opening these private networks and the data they contain to the Internet will require detailed security assessments to minimise risk of exploitation.
M.A.C Solutions
www.mac-solutions.net
Kepware
www.kepware.com
For more information or to download the full white paper “Industrial Internet of Things and Communications at the Edge” by Tony Paine, CEO of Kepware Technologies, please visit the websites listed above
/ DESIGNSOLUTIONS
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