How to implement the IIoT in my industry?

Some companies want to implement the Industrial Internet of Things systems but they don’t know how to do it, the purpose of this article is to give a brief description of a framework that could make easier the task of implementing IIoT systems. This industrial architecture framework was developed by the Industrial Internet Consortium in the article IIRA.

ISO / IEEE / IEEE 42010: 2011 standard as a reference for the construction of the IIoT framework

In order to implement the IIoT we need to establish a framework that facilitates the implementation of this complex task. In order to define this framework, it is recommended to use the ISO / IEC / IEEE 42010: 2011 standard. This system facilitates the evaluation of the IIoT system and the effective resolution of the concerns of individuals, teams or organizations interested, known as "stakeholders".
This framework is divided into the architecture frame and architecture representations. In the architecture frame can find the pointviews, the model kinds and the concerns. In the architecture representations we can find the views and the models.

ISO/IEC/IEEE 42010:2011 Framework

A viewpoint contains the conventions that frame the description and analysis of the specific concerns of the system. A viewpoint may involve one or more concerns.

The term concern, refers to any topic of interest related to the system.

A stakeholder, as previously described, is an individual, team, or organization that is interested in resolving a concern by describing and analyzing it through viewpoints.

Model kinds help stakeholders describe, analyze, and resolve concerns.

The views are the ideas obtained when describing, analyzing and solving the set of specific concerns in each of the viewpoints.

The applications of the model kinds at each point of view result in the creation of architecture models.

Framework for the Industrial Internet

First, we have to identify and analyze the most common concerns encountered in IIoT systems for a specific industry and classified within the viewpoints along with those stakeholders.
Then describe and analyze each concern and when possible offer a guide how to solve them, resulting in views and models.
The Industrial Internet frameworks does not explicitly identify model kinds as a key factor in building a framework.

Industrial Internet Architecture Framework

The views can be used as a starting point to build the system architecture, then through the feedback, improve the views to be more extended, enriched and developed, improving the system architecture.
In industry the viewpoints can be divided into: Business, Usage, Functional and Implementation.

Industrial Viewpoints

The business Viewpoint

It focuses the concerns related from the vision of the business and the main stakeholders are the decision makers of how to run the company, the production administrators and the systems engineers.

The usage Viewpoint

It is concerned with the activities and tasks that the personnel and the control system must carry out in order to solve concerns from the viewpoint of the business. The stakeholders are the system engineers, production managers, and other individuals who may be involved in the IIoT system specification.

The functional Viewpoint

It is concerned with the functional components of the IIoT system, its structure, the interfaces and interactions between them and external elements, to carry out activities and tasks defined from the usage viewpoint. Those interested are the architects of the system and its components, developers and integrators. A typical IIoT system can be decomposed into 5 functional components or domains:
• Control Domain: Represents the collection of functions performed by the control system.
• Operations Domain: Represents the collection of functions for the management, monitoring and optimization of the control system.
• Information Domain: Represents the collection of functions that collects data from multiple domains, such as the control domain, and transform that data into intelligent information.
• Application Domain: Represents the collection of application logic functions that perform specific business functions.
• Business Domain: represents the business functions that act on the operations of the IIoT system.

In this way we see that the decisions or viewpoints established on the basis of high level concerns determine the requirements of the lowest level viewpoints. But low-level viewpoints such as implementation validate or in some cases review and analyze the highest-level viewpoints.
However, there are several concerns that are shared in all the viewpoints and not just one such as those mentioned above, such as security concerns, these are called cross-cutting concerns and are related to the system characteristics, that is, the properties and performance of the IIoT system that result from its subsystems and the interactions with each other, the context and the environment in which they operate.

The Implementation Viewpoint

It is concerned with the technologies required to implement the functional components (functional viewpoint), their communication schemes and the life cycle procedures. These components are coordinated by activities (usage viewpoint) to achieve satisfying system capabilities (business viewpoint). Those interested are the system architects and their components, developers, integrators and system operators. The implementation of IIoT systems follow certain architectural patterns such as:
• Three levels architecture
• Edge connectivity with gateways
• Databus in layers

The architecture of three levels is formed by:

• The edge level connects the sensors with a proximity network.
• The platform level processes commands that come from the company level and passes them to the edge level through the service network, also processes the data that comes from the edge level through the access network.
• The enterprise level participates in the decision making and provides interfaces between the end users.

Industrial Internet of Things Architecture

The Gateways are a bridge between the control network or the edge and the internet network. It provides an end point for the internet network by isolating the control network.

Databus layers provide low data transmission delays, security, peer-to-peer communications, and are useful for applications that handle interactions between field applications, such as control, monitoring and analysis.