Supporting a service-oriented approach in the IIoT

 The Industrial Internet of Things (IIoT) is rapidly growing and providing real-time visibility of operations across factory floors and supply chains, resulting in significant gains in efficiency, safety, and uptime. The COVID-19 pandemic has accelerated the adoption of machine-to-machine and human-machine digital interactions to maintain staff safety. According to analysts, the IIoT market is expected to reach $263.4 billion by 2027 and $1.1 trillion by 2028.


However, despite the benefits of connecting industrial machines and tools and combining factory data with cloud apps and supply chain systems, there are still barriers to joining IIoT. One of the main challenges is integrating IIoT into existing operational technology and IT systems.


To overcome this barrier, companies are turning to Service Oriented Architecture (SOA), microservices, and the Open Platform Communication Unified Architecture (OPC UA) standard for industrial automation communication. SOA allows for software components to be interoperable and reusable via service interfaces, making it easier for new products to use the services without understanding how they are generated. Microservices complement SOA by breaking up the components used into small, independently changeable, and scalable pieces, improving scalability and agility.


The OPC UA standard for machine-to-machine communication in industrial automation is also crucial for participation in and exploitation of the IIoT. OPC UA was developed by the OPC Foundation to improve cooperation in an industrial environment and uses an extensible service-oriented architecture that can be embedded into microcontrollers on the factory floor as well as integrated into cloud-based servers. It brings essential features such as server identification, data hierarchy, and read/write permissions to the network.


An example of the value of a service-oriented approach to Industry 4.0 is Hewlett Packard Enterprise Services' demonstration of its Converged Plant Infrastructure, which included a "Virtual Fort Knox'' app store of cloud-based industrial services and applications featuring a dashboard to view, fine-t.


The growth of the Industrial Internet of Things (IIoT) continues to accelerate, providing real-time visibility of operations across factories and supply chains, resulting in increased efficiency, safety, and uptime. The COVID-19 pandemic has further accelerated the adoption of IIoT, as more machine-to-machine and human-machine digital interactions were needed to maintain staff safety. However, despite the advantages of connecting industrial machines and tools, many companies still face barriers to joining IIoT.


One way to overcome these barriers is through the adoption of Service Oriented Architecture (SOA), microservices, and the Open Platform Communication Unified Architecture (OPC UA) standard for industrial automation communication. SOA, which was defined in the 1990s, allows software components to be interoperable and reusable via service interfaces. This means that the "services" can be more easily used by new products without needing to understand exactly how the service is generated. In the IIoT, sensor outputs become services that any device can access. The interfaces used are loosely coupled, making it easier and safer to share services.


Microservices complement SOA by breaking up the components of a single application into small, independently changeable, and scalable pieces. This improves scalability by enabling a component to be replicated in a cloud service, according to the workload. It also improves agility, as developers can include and evaluate new microservices independently without impacting the rest of the system, and increases overall resilience, as the system isn't dependent on just one instance of a microservice.


The OPC UA standard for machine-to-machine communication in industrial automation is the third piece of the service-oriented puzzle that enables participation in and exploitation of the IIoT. The OPC UA standard was developed by the OPC Foundation to improve cooperation in an industrial environment. It uses binary UA and XML formats to secure and exchange messages, Microsoft’s COM and DCOM protocols, as well as the OPC Public Key Infrastructure (PKI).

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