Edge data gathering, analytics for

automation
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 RCEP Quality Assurance Statement

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 Course description:

Hardware and software used to gather and analyze collected data may require more
capabilities than traditional controllers used in automation applications. What hardware and
software characteristics are particularly useful for industrial edge data gathering and
analytics? When should cloud-based connections be considered for analytics, how can
cloud data analytics help and what needs to happen to data before going to the cloud?

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Learning Objectives:
• See how data should be treated during collection and before
analysis, either on premise or in the cloud

• Understand how hardware and software for industrial edge

applications are helping with data gathering and data preparation
before analytics

• Explore how hardware and software needs for industrial edge

applications differ from more traditional hardware and software for
automation applications

• Learn about applications that illustrate industrial edge automation

hardware and software needs
 Method of Delivery and Category

This event is a live educational webcast presented on

June 12, 2024.

The educational category is “Technical, Health and Safety”

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Today’s Presenters

PRESENTER MODERATOR

Joshua Abbott Tyler Wall

Steering Committee Member, Associate Content Manager,
Linux Foundation’s Control Engineering
Project Margo WTWH Media

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Learning Objective 1

See how data should be treated during collection and before analysis, either
on premise or in the cloud.
Focus on the Analysis
Not the infrastructure

Don’t start by thinking about the Edge

Edge is enabling infrastructure
Start by thinking about what information the user needs
to react to
And where they will be when they need to see it
And then focus on the sources of the data that will be
processed to generate that information
Infrastructure follows these decisions – not leads

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Artificial Intelligence (AI) changes everything
Big Data is at the heart of success
Less is no longer more

AI doesn’t get bored

AI is designed to process big data

Consolidation of data across multiple plants

Consolidation of data across multiple users

Fleet of data collectors

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MQTT, REST and more new acronyms
Different technologies for different applications

Plant floor interfaces Cloud interfaces

• Naturally constrained • Highly scalable
• Highly reliable networks • Unpredictable internet
• High frequency periodic • High volume change of
communications state communications
• Single data points with as-is • Many data points in time
state series data
• Within the firewall • Traverses many firewalls
• Availability #1 priority • Integrity #1 priority

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Edge as the data broker
Applications that store, pre-process and forward
• Enables IT/OT convergence IT
• Local buffering of high-frequency in-plant data
gathering
• Off-loaded device functionality
• Optimized transactional cloud communication Edge
• Hysteresis and change-of-state

OT

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Learning Objective 2

Understand how hardware and software for industrial edge applications are
helping with data gathering and data preparation before analytics.
Defining the Edge
Application workloads running on a compute surface

• Machine Learning app workloads

• Presentation of information to the user
• Learning through analysis of large data sets
• Storage of large data sets
• Accumulation of data sets from multiple sources
• Store, pre-process and forward of local data
• Edge hardware
• Microprocessors
• Memory
• Operating system
• Hosts many containerized app workloads

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You are the key to sensor data
Democratization of artificial intelligence
and machine learning (AI & ML)
Was data scientists -> is IT/OT Convergence

Easy to use ML tools

Contextualization is critical

Metadata enables insight

Capturing plant-floor ‘tribal knowledge’

Plant-floor data -> enterprise-wide insight

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Security
Provide isolation between Plant, Enterprise and Cloud
• Authenticity
• Confidentiality
• Trust
• Data diodes

Patch management

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Learning Objective 3

Explore how hardware and software needs for industrial edge applications
differ from more traditional hardware and software for automation
applications.
Not simply an IT problem
Adapting software and hardware delivery for industrial environments
These workloads and devices live at the edge of the plant, interacting
directly with the enterprise and cloud
• Do no harm. Must not introduce disruption to 24/7 operations
• For mission critical applications, must maintain continuous
availability even through updates

Security is a much bigger concern.

• Zero-trust as a first principle
• Cannot compromise the security of the plant operations
• Maintaining up-to-date patching while address risk associated
with deployment of updates

Compliance
• Industries often require strict standards adherence as a license to
operate (e.g. security, safety, audit logs)
Be careful what you wish for…
The advancement of edge solutions raises a new problem for automation end users

Take software update delivery as an example…

Patches need to be deployed
once by the vendor and semi-
automatically distributed
everywhere the workload or
device is deployed
These workloads may be less
mission critical than
traditional process control, so
vendors move to much
shorter release cycles to
quickly deliver value to the
market
This results in problems with
deployment at scale that we
have not typically seen in
industrial automation
software and devices before
where stability was and is
valued more than new
features once a system is
deployed
Learning Objective 4

Learn about applications that illustrate industrial edge automation hardware

and software needs.
Hardware and software needs for the Edge
What drives these decisions?

Security Software Capabilities Hardware Resources Data Characteristics

Not “one size fits all” for the industrial edge. This creates interoperability challenges.

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 Industrial edge personas
Hardware/software needs are ultimately driven by business value
Main persona

Selects edge applications to improve the productivity of their

Plant manufacturing process. Deploys and maintains these apps at scale
Operator in the production facilities of their enterprise, using their common
fleet management software.
Secondary personas

App Device Fleet Management

Developer Manufacturer Software Vendor

System Machine
Integrator Builder
Application interoperability
Deploying edge applications at scale

User Story - A plant operator wants to Proof of Concept Deployment & management at scale
deploy applications from different vendors
at scale. Manual Automated
process process
• The plant operator has a preferred Plant A Plant B
hardware vendor 1 2 2 2
1 1
• Hardware must support the required Equipment 01
applications 1 2
• Must monitor and manage all required
applications using the same
orchestration solution Plant C

1 1 2 2
Difficult to achieve due to many
applications having strict dependencies on 1 App from supplier X 1 2
hardware or orchestration solutions.
2 App from supplier Y
Device interoperability
Managing edge devices at scale

User Story - A plant operator wants to Proof of Concept Deployment & management at scale
manage devices from different vendors at
scale. Manual Automated
process process
• Multiple devices are required to fulfill Plant A Plant B
different application requirements (e.g. DEV DEV DEV DEV
GPU processing, small form factor) 1 2 1 DEV DEV
1
DEV 2 2
• Must monitor and manage all edge DEV
1
devices using the same orchestration 2
solution Plant C
• Must minimize the effort to patch and DEV DEV
DEV DEV
1 1
supervise these devices DEV1 Device from supplier X
2
DEV 2
DEV
1
DEV2 Device from supplier Y 2
Difficult to achieve due to lack of
standardization for managing devices.
Complexity is a barrier to innovation
An argument for interoperability

Proof of Concept Deployment & management at scale

• Not all deployments are the same
• Today plant operators must leverage Manual Automated
infrastructure specified by the software process process
manufacturers Plant A Plant B
• Complexity and cost grow substantially
with each additional supplier DEV DEV DEV DEV DEV DEV
• More devices and apps leads to more 1 2 1 1 2 2
effort to maintain
DEV DEV
• Need interoperable orchestration of
1 2
apps and devices to enable scaling
App from supplier A
Plant C
App from supplier B
DEV DEV DEV DEV
DEV1 Device from supplier X 1 1 2 2

DEV2 Device from supplier Y DEV DEV

1 2
Wrapping up
Some key takeaways
• The Edge delivers great potential, but also creates
complexity

• Users will have to manage this complexity,

encountering challenges in scaling

• Vendors will need to provide the tools to manage this

complexity and improve the efficiency of operations
for the Edge
Submitting questions, exit survey and archive
• Questions?
• Type your question in the “Ask a Question” box on the Webcast Console and click “Send.” We will get to as many
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• Take the Learning Unit Exam use the “Learning Unit Exam Tab” at the top of the screen; the exam will open in a
new browser window and the Iink will break when the Webcast signs off. The on-demand version of the webcast
includes the exam, which is for one (1) RCEP / ACEC Certified Professional Development Hour (PDH).
• Please take a moment to answer a few questions on our exit survey that will pop up on your screen at the
conclusion of the webcast. We use the answers to help make improvements to our webcast program.

• Archive:
 Within 7 days, an archive with Q&A will be posted

 We will send an email to registered attendees with hyperlink

 Can also access from www.controleng.com home page

Edge data gathering, analytics for
automation