IIoT

Tom Jenkins

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I'm starting to see a lot of trade press discussing IIoT - the Industrial Internet of Things. I'm teaching an instrumentation class next month, and I want to discuss it. I'm wary of the hype. This isn't the first time I've heard great promises from high tech vendors!

1) How many of you are actually employing IIoT in your automation systems?

2) How many users have had the performance live up to the expectation?

3) How many have tried IIoT and abandoned it as not quite ready for prime time?

4) How are concerns about data integrity and security being addressed?

Any info and experiences will be welcome. I've played a bit with a web-based SCADA system, but that's the extent of my experience. I'm curious about real-world applications.
 
Ha ha, just two days ago I got an email from our sales department, if I could give them a quick quote on how many hours I needed to implement Industry 4.0 (which may or may not include IoT). I tried to give some meaningful response, but I had to keep it in very vague terms.

Here is part 1 of 4 of the parts that make out Industry 4.0 (from Wikipedia):
1. Interoperability: The ability of machines, devices, sensors, and people to connect and communicate with each other via the Internet of Things (IoT) or the Internet of People (IoP)
a. Adding IoT will further automate the process to a large extent[9]
That is quite broad. Not just machines, devices and sensors, but also people should connect together.
As I see it, there should be some kind of standard, both for the inter-device part and the device-to-people part, if not nothing will happen except for a myriad of incompatible solutions.
Something may happen if some of the big industrial players set the standards. I am thinking of the car manufacturing and food and pharma plants.
Anyone know of any such standards for IoT and IoP. ?

Some of the other parts of Industry 4.0 we are quite well on the way with.
 
None at the moment, but have been getting my ears full of the IIOT, industrie 4.0, etc... and yet every single salesman coming through the door gets stumped when I ask them a few simple questions such as:

- What is the difference between your solution and an historian with a good reporting tool?
- Why do you have to keep my data?
- What are you doing with my data?

In my opinion, and I would love to be shown otherwise, this is automation companies trying to go down the Amazon Web Services route and getting people to pay for them to hold the company's data.
Then there's all the interesting bits about having the control system somewhat exposed to the outside and what are they doing with the data... which should be an interesting conversation considering all the buzz around Facebook's business model at the moment.
 
One of the problems with IIoT is that it means different things to different people. Everyone is taking the buzzword and using it to describe the cool new feature they just released. I see some brands saying "LOOK! WE'RE IIOT! WE HAVE AN ETHERNET PORT NOW", whereas most of the major automation vendors have had Ethernet based products for 10+ years.

I'm assuming you're talking about big data/cloud integration type stuff.

For the security aspect: I will say that I've heard a lot of major companies are waiting for "Private Cloud" options to be available. They want the flexibility/data storage/analytics, but they don't want the data to ever leave their network. I think it's less about known flaws, and more about the general principle of the thing.

When it comes right down to it, I really agree with cardosocea. Almost everything you hear people talk about when they reference IIoT is putting a new spin on things that have been around for years. Most existing SCADA platforms have historians, they can run reports, and can connect to remote systems either via VPN or by telecontrol. Most of them have also probably been expanded to have some sort of web interface. It isn't the SAME thing as a cloud SCADA system, no. The thing that makes it SOUND revolutionary is the fact that so many plants are still running PLC5s or S5s or other ancient control systems, and they haven't even glanced into the future until recently.
 
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I am in the position to be both a designer/integrator and the effective end-user. In our facility I get to design the machine controls, have them built, and when necessary, troubleshoot them after they are in production. So, with that in mind, I tend to think more from an end-user point of view and strongly lean toward making things friendly for maintenance.

I'm not too excited about IIOT, especially not when you get down to the device and sensor level. Devices and sensors, IMHO, should be as simple as possible, depending on the application of course, with no programming required. Simply grab another from the shelve and replace the bad one. Nothing worse than having a sensor go out at 2 am and nobody knows how to program it or what values to use. Sure, good documentation, effective training, and extremely advanced DHCP server-type systems can cover most, if not all of that, but these demand other efficient support systems and a level of accountability that often don't exist. Bubba doesn't want to do it so Bubba either can't find the documentation, doesn't remember his training. So then the machine sits.

When you pull back a little from the device level, IIOT becomes a little more interesting, but still has me holding back. My biggest concern here is security. As hackers get more and more savvy, I see more attempts to sabotage industrial systems as imminent. I believe the more we look to implement IIOT and connect our machine cells for that purpose, we risk creating easy avenues for these attacks. I don’t like the idea of being the guy who created the means by which a hacker was able to disrupt our production. Over time I’m sure plant-floor IIOT security become a standard thing, but I think we still have a long way to go before advanced IIOT can be implemented without significant risk.

Finally, pulling back even further, I don’t see a lot of real value in making all this data available to the world. At least I don’t with most of the organizations I’ve worked for and with. Effective and worthwhile use of the information they already have is challenge enough.

For where I am today, I will wait and watch. No significant IIOT push from me.
 
I'm starting to see a lot of trade press discussing IIoT - the Industrial Internet of Things. I'm teaching an instrumentation class next month, and I want to discuss it. I'm wary of the hype.
Me too!
Late last year I was at two trade shows. One in Japan and on in China.
Industry 4.0 is a big deal there.

It is all hype in my not so humble opinion.

PLCs have supported Ethernet and could be accessed over the Internet in the late 1990s. So what is new? Nothing, except now someone things it is a good idea to upload all your data in a cloud somewhere so it can be analyzed.
Why can't the data by analyzed locally? The claim is that the data can be analyzed more thoroughly by something in the cloud.

Even back in the late 1980s computer systems we sold could be accessed over a modem by the customers main computer at some remove sight. This allowed them to shift raw material between the different plants a little more effectively. All this was done without Ethernet and the Internet.

I would like to see some results first.
 
We have plc's communicating with each other (miles apart), controlling pumps, sending alarms, using the cellular network and VPN Tunnels. All of our remote locations are accessible by smartphones. We use Cloud servers that run data checks on all our equipment everyday. When new firmware comes out we upload to server and when our devices start to check in if the firmware is different it will update automatically. This way none of our equipment will ever become an "Orphan".

We use "Modbus Tcp", we can have a Modbus Tcp I/O unit half way around the world and read in real time almost any type sensor data(4-20ma, 0-10, Digital Inputs, HSC) all across a cellular network.

We have implemented MQTT (Publisher/Subscriber) for transferring Data back to a SQL Database for reporting.

I think MQTT will soon be a standard at the plant floor. (Simple, fast, secure.)

I hear everyday, from a lot of automation people (you can't depend on cellular) but we have been with Verizon for years and don't experience any problems.

The modem we use is medical certified they use this modem on cellular networks to monitor Heart patients, so what does that say???

I think IIOT is here and the sooner we embrace it and start working with it and not against it the better off we will be.

MQTT protocol is so light weight when compared to sending/receiving data, it is 100 time more efficient then almost anything in use today.

And now you have my 2 cents worth!
 
I think IIOT is here and the sooner we embrace it and start working with it and not against it the better off we will be.

I don't see anyone here fighting against IIOT or industrie 4.0 or whatever new buzzword is current.

The installation you describe is making use of technologies that existed well before the new trend came out. Not sure about MQTT or even MQTT support for traditional automation devices, but remote access existed since a very long time. For most of us, the IIOT is not about having access to data or remote stations it is about automation companies storing the production data and charging for it. It's no different than you buying an apartment to let out and get a regular income at the end of the month.

When you say cloud servers, who owns the servers?

Your devices with self updating firmware don't sound like a PLC... Are they PLC's?

I think most of us are, and rightly so, sceptical of buzzwords without a proper explanation about security concerns, prices and how different is it really than the proper use of existing technologies.

How would Siemens, GE, Rockwell or whoever be more knowledgeable about the productive process of the plant I work on? Surely their software, to be truly scalable and used for every other company whilst turning a profit can't really dig down into the nitty gritty of data because they either don't have the knowledge of the plant/process or to have that, the cost would be prohibitive as it wouldn't be completely transferrable to other plants.
 
I dont get it... maybe im just getting older but

I had a school buying my trainers, they are a major university... they wanted to setup a trainer with a video camera and have their students to either VPN or remote control into the PLC they stated its part of the 'Internet of things" I told them its a physical PLC trainer and they needed flip the switch or push the button and after several phone calls they just did not get it... I told them it would be better to use a simulator but I think it was all about the buzz wording and they were tasked to get a PLC on the internet of things before another school did, not sure if they ever finished it
 
When new firmware comes out we upload to server and when our devices start to check in if the firmware is different it will update automatically.

You must not work in regulated industries (pharma, nuclear...). One the system has been validated, NO CHANGES are permitted without change control, risk assessment, approvals and testing.

I've seen too many things "break" because something was updated which "shouldn't" have affected anything, but did. The recent Windows patch for Spectre, for example, broke Wonderware's Historian and DA servers; I think Rockwell was similarly affected. While these were software not firmware changes, the caution still applies: if it ain't broke, you probably can leave it alone.
 
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Ok I'll put the smart a**in aside for a moment.

Windows did screw the pooch on Spectre, agreed!

But ANYTHING on the net, and I mean Anything can be hacked.

So, have several hackers hacking a bunch of small things, and affecting somethings, or have them all hack one big thing and affect everything.

Well hell now your'e just making it easier for them.

Sometimes diversity is a good defense

Call me Jaded.
 
Here's a good READ!

Knowing who wrote something is at times more important than the reading itself. So who wrote this?

Because:

- #1 doesn't answer why it has to be done in the cloud.
- #2 is salesman ******** as they are literally saying that the analytics comes out of the instrument. This being the case, the "smarts" would be moving from the PLC down and not up as the IIOT trend wants.
- #3 I've seen simulation and modelling of systems done 10 years ago... IIOT does not bring anything new to this.
- #4 Likewise, I've seen real life simulators for training of operators in complex equipment for far longer than 10 years ago. To the point that it stopped making sense having one simulator and the company now sells the simulators to their clients.
- #5 As a niche protocol... yes.
- #6 Remember the Juniper Firewall fiasco a few years ago??
 

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