A Horizontal Taxonomy for the Industrial IoT
is not only managing many connections, it is also sending the same data over and over through
each of those connections.
IIoT systems often need to distribute information to many more destinations than enterprise
systems. They also often need higher performance on slower machines. Complex systems even
face a “fan out mesh” problem, where many producers of information must send to many
recipients. When fan out exceeds 10 or so, it becomes impractical to do this branching by
managing a set of 1:1 connections. An architecture that supports efficient multiple updates
greatly simplifies these systems.
Figure 9: IIoT Applications Needing Data Distribution
Many applications must deliver the same data to many potential endpoints. Coordinated vehicle fleets may
update a cloud server, but then that information must be delivered to many distributed vehicles. An emergency
services communications system must allow many remote users access to high-bandwidth distributed voice
and video streams. Many industries (automotive here) use “hardware in the loop” simulation to test and verify
modules during development. Across all these industries, an efficient architecture must deliver data to multiple
points easily.
3.7
Collection Focus
Metric: One-way data flow from more than 100 sources
Architectural Impact: Local concentrator or gateway design
Data collection from field systems is a key driver of the IIoT. Many systems transmit copious
information to be stored or analyzed in higher-level servers or the cloud. Systems that are
essentially restricted to the collection problem do not share significant data between devices.
These systems must efficiently move information to a common destination, but not between
devices in the field.
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December 2015