Business Strategy and Innovation Framework
Portal / UX Services |
Resource Discovery |
Application Management |
Data Analytics & Presentation |
Service Charging & Accounting |
Location Services |
Policy Management |
Identity Management |
Registration |
Subscription Management |
Group Management |
Device Management |
Data Management & Repository |
|
|
|
Communication Management |
Security Management |
Disaster Recovery |
Figure 6-2: Inventory of IIoT platform service functions
These IIoT platform services are common to many IIoT applications. There are standardization advantages to reusing these services to support multiple applications. Furthermore, their inclusion in a horizontal platform architecture helps to break down silo boundaries and enables interoperability 1 across applications.,
Consider a scenario where different platforms support multiple applications. Clearly, there are economic benefits from sharing common infrastructure. More importantly, shared services allow applications to share data as well as security and identity management credentials.
In practical terms, this would enable the owner of App # 1 in Figure 6-1 above to deliver a better application by incorporating data from one of the devices associated with App # 4, for example. Similarly, an application provider on Platform A could create a completely new application by combining sensors and other data sources from Apps 1 #, # 2 and # 3. The presence of common service functions in a horizontal IIoT platform architecture makes this possible. These examples illustrate the case where a horizontal platform supports multiple interoperable vertical applications. In a market where several vertical and horizontal platforms exist, horizontal platforms also enable cross-platform interoperability.
Interoperability is particularly relevant in industrial environments. Construction sites, farms, manufacturing plants and transport hubs all offer significant opportunities for sharing sensors, data and computing resources.
1
For the purposes of this discussion, we do not distinguish between interoperability and interworking. IIC: PUB: B01: V1.0: PB: 20161115- 41-