The industrial internet of things (IIoT) is transforming the manufacturing process by enabling manufacturers to collect and analyze large amounts of data from their machines, sensors, and other devices in their production lines on factory floors. According to Grand View Research, the global IIoT market size was valued at USD 321.81 billion in 2022 and is expected to expand at a compound annual growth rate (CAGR) of 23.2% from 2023 to 2030. The growth of this market hinges on the collection of data that is being driven by IIoT.
As manufacturers take strides toward IIoT, there are several reasons why it can be challenging for them to collect data from and interact with equipment:
Figure 1: Challenges in IIOT
To meet Industry 4.0 requirements, manufacturers must create a more connected, efficient, and intelligent manufacturing ecosystem by leveraging advanced technologies. Enterprise applications need to interact with edge equipment proactively and in real-time. This requires an architectural paradigm shift to event-driven architecture.
MQTT is an OASIS standard messaging protocol for the internet of things (IoT). It is designed as an extremely lightweight publish/subscribe messaging transport that is ideal for connecting remote devices with a small code footprint and minimal network bandwidth.
MQTT has become a de facto standard for sending data from edge devices to IT systems. Thus, MQTT brokers (which understand MQTT protocol) play a critical role in the functioning of MQTT-based communication systems, enabling the efficient and reliable exchange of data between devices and applications.
Having a scalable MQTT broker ensures resilient communication between IT and OT systems, so when choosing an MQTT broker, it’s essential for manufacturers to consider factors such as scalability, performance, reliability, security, and ease of use, depending on the specific needs of the use case.
Solace PubSub+ Event Broker is a full-featured event broker with built-in support for MQTT which can scale up to millions of connections while also keeping up with the performance with high throughput and low latency. PubSub+ Event Broker also offer geographical scaling and dynamic message routing capabilities, which allow for the broad distribution of real-time messages to any geographical location. PubSub+ Event Broker also works well with the edge platform which is increasingly becoming important for edge computing use cases.
A robust edge computing platform can help companies on the road to Industry 4.0 in multiple ways as described below:
Edge Signal is an edge computing platform built to handle all technological and organizational complexities of edge device and application management. The platform manages a highly distributed variety of hardware via a single dashboard from rich IoT and cloud integration options, management, monitoring, run-time-environment, software updates, and security perspectives. It also provides different integration use case such as no-low, low-code to highly customized App code.
As you’ve seen earlier, Solace PubSub+ Event Broker and Edge Signal individually can provide a vast advantage to overall IIoT architecture. A joint architecture with these two components will prove to be the gold standard.
Together, Edge Signal and Solace PubSub+ Event Broker will become essential components for modern manufacturers who want to build connected and intelligent factories and leverage the benefits of Industry 4.0 technologies.
The combined solution can help enhance the performance, security, and scalability of, as well as enable the architecture to handle large volumes of data from, multiple devices and applications.
The architectural diagram below shows this integrated solution.
Figure 2: High-level architecture of Solace and Edge Signal
The combined architecture provides a wide variety of protocol options for enterprises to choose from. The Solace broker also gives flexibility for protocol interoperability which means that devices can use the MQTT protocol (or other proprietary IoT protocols) and applications can subscribe to the same message using other application-specific protocol such as JMS, AMQP, etc. Solace broker will do the protocol translation.
The below diagram gives the list of all the protocols supported by Edge Signal And PubSub+ Event broker:
Figure 3: Protocol stack of Solace and Edge Signal.
Solace PubSub+ Event Broker has multiple capabilities which will simplify the overall architecture. The broker’s event mesh capabilities will help bring the OT and IT data together. By enabling communication and integration between IT and OT systems, an event mesh can help to improve the efficiency and effectiveness of an enterprise. Through Event Mesh Applications, people and systems will have access to real-time data where it is needed and when it is needed.
Figure 4: Event Mesh Capability
Edge Signal can support 3 different kinds of use cases:
The diagram below illustrates how low-code, no-code, and app-code scenarios can run together on a Linux device managed by Edge Signal.
Figure 5: EdgeSignal Use Cases
Embarking on an IIoT project for any manufacturing/industrial enterprise is becoming a necessity. Solace PubSub+ Broker and Edge Signal have helped many organizations take care of scalability, security, and a multitude of concerns that come with integrating OT and IT. This has also allowed these companies to concentrate on their core business logic while we take care of their integration woes.
I’d love to talk to you regarding your IIoT journey and how we can be of help.
For more information, please visit us on solace.com or edgesignal.io