A Practical Guide to Using the Industrial Internet Connectivity Framework
INTRODUCTION
The Industrial Internet of Things ( IIoT ) is a vast , expanding space . The Industrial Internet Consortium ’ s ( IIC ) primary mission is to resolve the resulting confusion and thus guide the industry . The IIC developed the Industrial Internet Connectivity Framework ( IICF ) to help designers understand the many standards and choose the right one for their applications .
The IICF focuses on the layers above the network packet exchange . It offers profound insights into architecture , standards , and use cases . It also presents a way to build an expansive IIoT network in the future by linking a few “ core connectivity standards ” that address different regions of the connectivity space .
This paper first outlines the IICF ’ s key insights into system architecture , including the newly-defined IIoT connectivity stack . With that architecture , we explain why the IICF sorts the various standards into the stack based on their provided interoperability . Finally , the IICF offers deep analysis of six key standards and technologies : DDS 1 , OPC UA 2 , oneM2M 3 ,
RESTful HTTP 4 , MQTT 5 , and CoAP 6 . There are of course many others ; the IIC chose these because they have the greatest traction .
The most surprising conclusion : the IIoT space is so big that the connectivity technologies essentially do not overlap . Thus , by understanding the use cases , architectures and target end users , it is possible to select a best-candidate connectivity standard for most problems .
Finally , the paper then distills the IICF results into a simple tool that designers can use to select the right technology . The tool is a simple set of yes-or-no questions that assess the fit for each technology , as well as technical and business justification for those questions .
THE IIOT SPACE AND THE IICF
The Internet of Things ( IoT ) combines many technologies , encompasses vast use cases , and attracts vendors of all sorts who want to join the fray . This generates confusion , nowhere more apparent than in its most important aspect : connectivity .
1
The Data Distribution Service ( DDS ) is a series of standards managed by the Object Management Group ( OMG ), https :// portals . omg . org / dds /
2
OPC Unified Architecture ( OPC UA ) is a standard managed by the OPC Foundation , https :// opcfoundation . org
3 oneM2M is a standard managed by the oneM2M consortium , http :// www . onem2m . org /. OPC UA is also known as IEC 62541
4
The Hypertext Transfer Protocol ( HTTP ) is a standard , RFC 7231 , managed by the Internet Engineering Task Force ( IETF ). https :// tools . ietf . org / html / rfc7231
5
MQ Telemetry Transport ( MQTT ) is a standard managed by the Organization for the Advancement of Structured Information Standards ( OASIS ). http :// mqtt . org /
6
The Constrained Application Protocol ( CoAP ) is a standard , RFC 7252 , managed by IETF . https :// tools . ietf . org / html / rfc7252
- 72 - September 2017