Connectivity Framework 3: Connectivity Reference Architecture
3 CONNECTIVITY REFERENCE ARCHITECTURE 3.1 IIOT CONNECTIVITY CHALLENGE
The goal of the industrial internet is to enable seamless information sharing across domains and industries. Historically, there have been a plethora of domain specific connectivity technologies, tightly integrated and optimized to solve domain specific connectivity needs. IIoT systems typically include integration of brownfield technologies to preserve the legacy investments, and greenfield technologies to spur innovation.
Figure 3-1 shows the challenge of building applications that require information exchange across different connectivity technologies. To facilitate information exchange, one has to build bridges to each of the other connectivity technologies. Given N connectivity technologies, this requires building N *( N-1)/ 2 = O( N ²) bridges. That quickly becomes impractical for large N(> 3 or 4). The result is information silos, making it impossible to realize the vision of the Industrial Internet to create new value stream from heretofore locked up information flows.
N x( N-1) 2
Figure 3-1: The fundamental N ²( N-squared) IIoT connectivity challenge. Each new connectivity technology requires building a bridge to all the existing connectivity technologies, in order to facilitate information exchange between endpoints in different connectivity technologies. This approach does not scale beyond a few( small N) technologies, and results in information silos.
In this document, we use the term“ domain-specific” connectivity technology to refer to a connectivity technology that is especially suited to a particular application area. Domain-specific connectivity technologies include emerging technologies, optimized for certain use cases.
We accept that an IIoT system may require multiple connectivity technologies. Mandating a single connectivity standard across all domains and across all industries is neither realistic nor
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