July 2017

High Availability Server for IIoT Applications

Simplify the Architecture of the IoT

Introduction

Industry 4.0 is the next generation of the continuing series of industrial revolutions that have created modern manufacturing—and all of modern life. Industry 4.0 will permit higher functioning, more robust, more nimble, and more available manufacturing. Industry 4.0 requires Big Data and Big Data analytics. The Data in Big Data comes from a huge number of sensors—the “Things” in the Internet of Things. To reach the goals of Industry 4.0, we need to build out the Industrial Internet of Things.

The Industrial Internet of Things is complicated. On one side, the “Things” are diverse, and can be a wide variety of sensors and controllers and displays. On the other side, the “Internet” needs to be able to interface all those sensors and controllers at the edge, while providing very high availability for the data as it comes from the edge to the Control System or to the Cloud. In order to make the whole IIoT work, the servers and other network appliances need to be robust and very high availability.

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Author: Magic Pao and Albert Wang, Advantech

.........One problem is that the Architecture of the IIoT is too complicated. There are hundreds, if not thousands, of dissimilar sensors, transmitters. There are many suppliers’ versions of final control elements like valve positioners, and other devices that are all providing data in many different formats, from analog 4-20mADC to fieldbuses like Profibus/Profinet, HART, and Foundation fieldbus; to the various wireless protocols like Zigbee, WirelessHART, ISA100 and others; to Ethernet/IP and MQTT.

All of these devices need to connect to controllers, network servers and switches, and often, directly to cloud services. It is extremely difficult to keep control over all this chaotic aggregation of devices and data. Changes in devices, new servers, different switches, all can produce errors in data, and produce problems that may lead to serious failures.

Figure 1

Centralized Management

An answer to the complexity of Industry 4.0 is “centralized management,” instead of the variety of different connectivity solutions depicted in the figure above. Using Advantech’s WISE-PaaS platform, Advantech provides a robust, centralized data management solution, which provides centralized management features for all servers, gateways, controllers and devices. Advantech’s WISE-PaaS platform software accomplishes this by taking independent storage devices and placing them under one infrastructure-wide service. The server software then virtualizes each storage device by sharing all the collective storage resources-- making any storage both uniform and software-defined, and thereby eliminating differences and incompatibilities among manufacturers, models and generations of equipment in use. This centralized infrastructure means flexible expansion and fast, scalable deployment with easier maintenance.

Advantech’s WISE PaaS (Platform-as-a-Service) is a Cloud-based integrated IoT software service and cloud platform providing an operating environment with stability, speed, integration, and modularity. Advantech system integrators and other customers can benefit from highly efficient

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.........management and fast interconnectivity among these services to compose IoT solutions. WISE-PaaS provides diverse software packages, which include:

WISE-PaaS/RMM for device remote monitoring and management WebAccess/SCADA for supervisory control and data acquisition WebAccess/IMM for interactive multimedia dispatch programs WebAccess/IVS for video streaming and video analytics WebAccess/NMS for network management

Advantech recognizes that many suppliers can contribute to the WISE-PaaS ecosystem and have established a partner program that allows these suppliers to collaborate with Advantech in serving the customers and end users. One of those suppliers is DataCore, with whom Advantech has begun collaborating.

Collaborating with DataCore

Advantech and DataCore Software offer a range of factory-based hyper-converged server solutions for Industry 4.0. Advantech provides Intelligent System platform solutions across multiple vertical markets and DataCore Software provides software-defined storage whose virtualization software empowers organizations to seamlessly manage and scale their data storage architectures.

Figure 2

Most IIoT infrastructures have no protection mechanisms against data loss or improper consolidation or tampering. Networks in plants are often composed of many generations of servers, switches, and other devices. Different plants may use different data servers, Production Monitoring Systems, and SCADA workstations, all of which may be incompatible with other equipment in other plants. This can produce many issues for both operation and maintenance, but with the Advantech / DataCore solutions installed, data synchronization is seamless across systems in the same plant, meaning zero downtime; and provides accelerated performance

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.........across different manufacturing lines in different plants. With server virtualization, data failure is minimized and data protection is greatly enhanced. The Advantech and DataCore collaboration produces very high availability server solutions that are designed explicitly for the industrial environment and the Industrial Internet of Things.

Very High Availability

This high availability ensures better reliability without any downtime or manufacturing interruption. For example, when pumps fail, or a production line stops, there are cascading failures downstream that cause substantial repercussions and can reduce productivity or even shut plants down for long periods of time. The aim of high availability is to make sure systems or applications are configured to handle different loads and different failures with minimal or no downtime. This can be achieved by using multiple, virtual application servers in different geographical locations.

Different plants may use different data servers and different production monitoring systems, all of which may be incompatible with other systems and equipment in other locations, but with the Advantech/DataCore Hyper Converged Infrastructure solutions, data synchronization is seamless across systems and plants-- meaning zero downtime and enhanced performance across different manufacturing lines in different plants. This high availability ensures better reliability without downtime or manufacturing interruption.

Limitations of IoT Gateways—Unified Cloud Gateway

Often, IoT gateways can only connect to public clouds. In implementations of Industry 4.0, however, there are many connections to both public and private clouds and databases that are necessary for operations. These may be local, in-plant clouds, corporate clouds, and even public clouds where data can be stored and must be protected from penetration.

Advantech/DataCore’s solutions provide a unified IoT gateway platform that transfers data not just to the cloud, but also the branch office, partner sites, as well as the backend IT center. The solution uses Microsoft Windows/Azure as its core platform for innovation in storage, virtualization and networking, thereby helping customers realize the true potential of the industrial cloud. In addition, the solution can be installed into various Microsoft products, including Windows Server, Hyper-V, and System Center.

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Figure 3

This collaboration of Advantech and DataCore Software delivers a next-generation version of the industrial factory cloud. The advantages of the solution are centralized management, high availability, and seamless integration of existing devices and a unified IoT gateway, these benefits mean customers get greater consolidation savings and faster performance from data collection to decision-making. Advantech provides three solutions with DataCore: The SKY-4311 is a 1U dual Intel Xeon E5-2600 v3/v4 storage server, having the capacity for 512 GB of RAM, supporting up to eight 2.5" NVMe/SATA solid state drives and with space for two PCIe Gen III x8 Slots. The server is equipped with Intelligent Platform Management Services (IPMI) and it is robust and designed for industrial service and specifically for the IIoT.

The HPC-7120 is a 1U short depth server chassis for MicroATX/ATX/EATX server boards with two 2.5" hot-swap drive bays and one full-height/half-length PCIe x16 expansion slot. Industrially-hardened with wide temperature, humidity and vibration specifications, the HPC-7120 is specifically designed for plant-floor and data center level database management and analytics.

The HPC-8316 3U rackmount chassis supports an EATX/ATX/uATX motherboard, with 16-bay hot-swappable 3.5"/2.5" SAS 12Gb/s drives or SATA 6Gb/s drives, and support for 2 hot-swappable 2.5" drive bays at the rear for SAS SKUs. The design eliminates the need for an additional HBA card for SATA SKUs. Like all Advantech products, it has a wide temperature, humidity and vibration specification fitting it expressly for use in industrial applications.

Massive Amount of Devices Existing in Parallel—Seamless Integration of Existing Devices

The Advantech virtualization solution provides one set of common storage services across all storage devices under its control. The combined storage capacity of the different devices is managed as shared pools to eliminate wasted space. Unlike different storage systems with different types and generations of storage, the Advantech solution communicates seamlessly reducing complexity and preventing downtime. Advantech’s solutions seamlessly scale up and

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.........scale out each class of storage and servers, and data is replicated between nodes leaving no single point of failure. Central to the Advantech solution is robust data protection and cybersecurity.

Figure 4

SRP: Always On Systems

Advantech’s focus on SRP—Solution Ready Platforms-- makes it easy for integrators and customers to design, assemble, integrate and operate their systems and be ready for the IIoT. These SRPs are concentrated on several markets with higher automation maturity—those with the capability to incorporate smart factory and Industry 4.0 technologies and concepts such as the automobile assembly industry, the food industry, and the home electronics industry. These SRPs include equipment connectivity solutions for easy programming for real time machine control and data acquisition for machine optimization and monitoring. There are process visualization solutions for charting and MES data analysis for production optimization, and central management, which enhances productivity and reduces downtime. There are other solutions for integration, security, asset management and other important requirements.

An Example of an Industry 4.0 IIoT Application

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Figure 5

In Figure 4, you see a toy factory in Malaysia. Like many factories, it is made up of “islands of automation” that are separate and not integrated well into the operations of the rest of the plant. Ten different islands are attempting to connect to each other and to plant management using wireless access points and separate physical servers, and then, through an edge server to the Microsoft Azure cloud. The plant operations and management then need to use a SQL server for interrogation and report generation. Reports need to be individually coded, and report generation may not be effective. This whole design is inefficient and difficult to operate and maintain. All of the interconnections are brittle—changes in programming can produce failures in data transfer and analysis. Each of the servers can be individually replaced, and may contain different software generations, even if they are from the same manufacturer. Replacement of a single network component may cause catastrophic data transfer failures. The design of the factory network is difficult to manage, and ineffective and awkward to operate.

In Figure 5, you see Advantech’s solution for that same factory using WISE-PaaS and a single virtualized server to collect and distribute all of the data from the former islands of automation. The results of the Advantech/WISE-PaaS/DataCore solution are revealed. Using virtual servers, all the data from the ten different islands of automation in this plant is consolidated, and using Advantech’s WISE PaaS, the data can be provided to cloud-based data analysis systems, with no custom programming or need for custom APIs. When the physical systems need replacing or upgrading, the system design simply rolls over to the new server, and the data continues to move

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.........from the factory floor to the cloud, and back to the factory floor. If a server fails, the system rolls over to a backup with no loss of data or availability.

Using Advantech WISE-PaaS IIoT enabled platform, with DataCore virtualization and server regularization systems, many manufacturing plants have brought their operations into the Industrial Internet of Things, and allowed global operations to work seamlessly and with great flexibility and agility. These systems permit much easier maintenance and asset management and create a true IIoT architecture.

Conclusion

Advantech’s high availability servers, reorganized IIoT architecture, and Cloud management make it easier to achieve Industry 4.0. Advantech’s collaborative WISE-PaaS platform can be used in any sized plant or enterprise to carry the factory into the 21st Century.

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