A PoV on the IIC Industrial Internet Reference Architecture
1.
INTRODUCTION TO THE IIRA
The Industrial Internet Reference Architecture (IIRA) is a framework for guiding developers and
systems integrators involved in the conception, architecture and design of Industrial Internet
Systems (IIS) (Shi-Wan Lin, 2015). The IIRA aims to drive the development of interoperable
technology and standards.
The main purpose of the IIRA is the following:
To simplify and accelerate the development of complex Industrial Internet Systems
To drive interoperability and integration across diverse Industrial Internet Systems
To provide guidelines for technology development
This article represents a Point-of-View paper that discusses the Industrial Internet Consortium’s
Industrial Internet Reference Architecture version 1.6. We present a summary of the IIRA in the
first three sections of the paper, and provide an example of the Viewpoints and Stakeholder
analysis based on a real IIS that we are developing and deploying within Tata Consultancy Services
(TCS). We discuss several related reference architectures and frameworks already developed by
other organizations in the area of Industrial Internet or IoT. We present an analysis of the
strengths and weaknesses of the current version of the IIRA. This paper also suggests a practical
way for companies to get started with using the IIRA.
1.1
About Reference Architectures and the IIRA
The IIRA is a Reference Architecture and not an implemented system architecture. In general,
Reference Architectures provide guidelines for building compliant system architectures. A
reference architecture provides guidelines and constraints at a higher level of abstraction and is
not a concrete realizable architecture. It provides a common vocabulary for specifying system
requirements and encourages consistent implementations and compliance to agreed-upon
standards, protocols, and specifications. The IIRA provides a framework in which existing
standards and technologies are mapped and helps find gaps where technologies and standards
need to be developed. This article provides views and perspectives on different aspects of the
system architecture to ensure that all stakeholders’ needs are met.
1.2
Major Aspects of the IIRA
The IIRA, as described by the IIRA Technical Report (version 1.6), covers the following major
aspects:
Architecture Framework – consisting of various “viewpoints” of the IIRA and stakeholder
concerns corresponding to each viewpoint
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December 2015