Let’s talk about connecting industrial protocols and the cloud

Industrial protocols are communications between industrial automation products for data acquisition or control. In the early days of industrial automation, communications were largely a competitive advantage, and automation vendors invented their own communications protocols to develop a technological advantage and to some extent lock in their customer base. Of course, this has changed over the years, and vendors have opened up their protocols and even treated them as industry standards to expand their application range. Vendors realize that the vendor with the largest ecosystem of products to choose from will be more likely to win part of the project, if not the entire project. Vendors also realize that it is challenging to become experts in all areas of automation. Let's explore several industrial protocols and those that may be compatible with cloud applications.

Industrial protocol type

Over time, the manufacturing market has been dominated by a range of protocols, which can be understood from the leading suppliers of automation products. Before discussing which ones are best suited for the cloud, we can discuss some of the most common industrial protocols. These include protocol names such as Modbus, EthernetIP, Profinet, CC Link, EherCAT, etc. Many of these protocols are available in different forms to address different topologies - such as dedicated lines vs. Ethernet - and different purposes (general information transmission vs. deterministic control).

Years of standardization efforts brought us the technology of the OPC Foundation, which was originally based on Microsoft technology, using COM and DCOM Windows technologies for communication between applications. Thus, OPC (OLE for process control - OLE is the abbreviation for Object Linking and Embedding, the technology behind COM) was born.

#1: OPC

OPC brought standards for accessing data, whether polling or subscription, as well as definitions of different data types and how to handle them (analog and discrete variables, historical data, alarms and events, etc.). Over time, this standardization work evolved from being centered around Windows technology to being OS-agnostic, to supporting Linux and providing functionality suitable for Internet-based communications.

#2: OPC UA

The new standard is called OPC UA – OPC now stands for Open Process Communications and UA stands for Unified Architecture – and it’s a standard that replaces many earlier standards.

#3: MQTT

Another technology that focuses more on the transmission of messages rather than their content, and which stems from the need for highly distributed infrastructure with limited bandwidth, can be found in the upstream oil and gas market. This protocol is called MQTT. In recent years, its use in the industrial automation market, especially for cloud communications, has become very popular.

#4: BACnet

Vertical markets present unique requirements and promote the need for unique developments. In the field of building automation systems (BAS), the leading protocol is called BACnet. In the field of power generation and distribution, there are many protocols such as IEC-61850, 60870, DNP-3, etc.

Over time, these protocols have also existed in various topologies, and today most offer Ethernet compatibility.

Why is the cloud so important?

The benefits of cloud computing are numerous and compelling. They include:

• Capital expenses converted into operating expenses
• No more need to focus on infrastructure management
• Leverage a scalable architecture
• Provide accessibility to your entire organization anytime, anywhere
• Leverage the services of domain experts (security, upgrades, solution development)

The cloud can come in many forms, from solutions provided by industry leaders such as Microsoft and Amazon, to larger-scale offerings for targeted markets. Finally, there are hosted solutions, which move local servers to virtual servers in the cloud, but are still fully managed by the owner's IT staff.

The purpose of cloud computing is to reduce total cost of ownership by reducing system management and hardware ownership, as well as the ability to leverage solutions provided by others. These third-party solutions are often purpose-built for the market and offer multi-tenancy capabilities, letting service providers manage many customers while providing data and user isolation. The concept of cloud computing, especially for the industrial market, is still in its infancy, and companies are grappling with the idea of ​​cloud connectivity and hosting data outside of their four walls.

But again, the benefits are compelling: reduced operational costs, domain experts develop vertical market applications that only need to connect to the right data. There is another very compelling benefit. Service providers have the ability to leverage knowledge gained from a large number of customers to provide greater value to individual customers. As a result, the failure mode of a product in one environment can be predicted by the failure modes learned from other environments. This brings the potential for predictive analytics, tempered by the results and anonymization of data from an ecosystem of similar users. When connecting to the cloud, it is important to consider which industrial protocols are best suited for the application.

What to consider when connecting to the cloud

Considerations for utilizing cloud-based solutions fall into two broad categories

• Security (access security and network security related to data connections)
• Transmission (reliability and quality of data transmission)

Security is often managed through the use of a VPN (Virtual Private Network). This is an excellent solution for two-way and temporary communications as it is set up for remote troubleshooting purposes. When using a VPN for temporary access, customers can leverage solutions to secure and proxy access to endpoints in a very structured and controlled manner. This may include approval processes, access windows and time limits, and additional levels of authentication.

For information transmission to the cloud, it is becoming increasingly popular to use a publish-subscribe model and connection brokers to maximize security. Remote sites publish data to a known very secure connection, and the users of the data (cloud applications) subscribe to the data through the broker, eliminating the application's knowledge of remote communication details that represent vulnerabilities. Microsoft IoT Hub is a good example of this technology.

Industrial protocols for cloud connectivity

Not all industrial protocols are compatible with cloud applications, nor should they be. Without getting into the weeds of each protocol and defining whether it can be connected to the cloud, suffice it to say that the overall solution to the connectivity problem will be to deploy edge device technology that handles the communication with your IT and OT environments on one hand, and the cloud data transfer requirements on the other. These devices are starting to proliferate in the market, some with specific cloud connectivity built in, while others take more of a toolkit approach that allows for flexible configuration. Most have data transfer as their only function, while others support data modeling, analysis, and visualization in addition to data transfer.

From an OT perspective, we are again discussing the myriad of protocols and the purposes for which they are defined. As mentioned earlier, some networks are designed for deterministic performance, such as communication between a PLC and a servo drive. Protocols such as these are difficult to share without affecting their performance. Data sharing will be achieved by communicating with the controller rather than the device on the control network. Other more general protocols are often easy to connect to a cloud gateway (edge ​​device) to share information with the cloud.

Over time, Ethernet has seen major improvements in both topology and performance, initially focused on coaxial cable and now on twisted pair at speeds exceeding 1 Gigabit. Recent enhancements have been in device synchronization and traffic shaping capabilities. These features and more fall under an area of ​​Ethernet enhancements called TSN (Time Sensitive Networking). TSN is able to prioritize communications on Ethernet and control the bandwidth of traffic. In the long run, the overall benefit is greater troubleshooting capabilities through a simplified architecture and the ability to expose all information to cloud systems - accessing all devices and reducing costs.

Connect securely and reliably

Even with the wide range of industrial protocols available on the market, it is now possible to connect almost any automation solution to the cloud securely and reliably, either directly or using an edge gateway. The challenges we face today are in the fields of education and defense, but the benefits are numerous.