NEEDHAM, Mass., June 19, 2019 /PRNewswire-PRWeb/ -- The Industrial Internet Consortium® (IIC™) today announced the publication of version 1.9 of the IIC Industrial Internet Reference Architecture (IIRA) Technical Report, a standards-based architectural template and methodology that enables Industrial Internet of Things (IIoT) system architects to design their own systems based on a common framework and concepts.
First published in 2015, the IIRA identifies and highlights common architectural concerns found in IIoT systems and classifies them into viewpoints along with their respective stakeholders. It then describes, analyzes and where appropriate, provides guidance to resolve stakeholder concerns according to the viewpoints.
"The IIRA is intended as a living document and is updated to reflect learnings from real-world IIoT deployments and the latest technology developments so that it not only remains relevant but also becomes more useful to IIoT practitioners," said Shi-Wan Lin, CEO & Co-Founder, Thingswise, LLC, and Co-chair of the IIC Architecture Task Group. "This release of the IIRA, V1.9, reflects a refinement over the previous version as IIC members work on major enhancements that will be published in the near future."
This new version of the IIRA provides standard vocabulary definitions for the viewpoints and functional domains, and describes roles for human users, as follows:
- Business Viewpoint – architecture viewpoint that frames the vision, values and objectives of business stakeholders in establishing an IIoT system in its business and regulatory context.
- Usage Viewpoint – an architecture viewpoint that frames the concerns related to implementing the capabilities and structure of an IIoT system.
- Functional Viewpoint and Functional Domain – an architecture viewpoint that frames the concerns related to the functional capabilities and structure on an IIoT system and its components.
- Control Domain – functional domain for implementing industrial control systems.
- Operations Domain – functional domain for management and operation of the control domain.
- Information Domain – functional domain for managing and processing data.
- Application Domain – functional domain for implementing application logic.
- Business Domain – functional domain for implementing business functional logic.
- Implementation Viewpoint – architectural viewpoint that frames the concerns related to implementing the capabilities and structure of an IIoT system.
The Human Side of IIoT
"People play a huge role in IIoT systems – they design and build them, they use them, they are observed and acted on by them and they may even be part of them," said Eric Simmon, Senior Scientist at NIST, and Co-chair of the IIC Architecture Task Group.
As described in the IIC IIRA V1.9, each domain has a human user assigned to carry out specific tasks. For example, the human role in the control domain is largely concerned with deploying, operating and maintaining industrial control and automation systems. The human role in the information domain is about data processing and management and most importantly about building, validating and deploying analytic models into the IIoT system to gain insights from the data. In the business domain, the human user gathers insights from data to optimize business processes and decision making.
The IIC IIRA V1.9 also includes information about wireless communications for industrial automation systems. Some examples of functional components that rely upon low latency, reliable wireless communications are robots on the manufacturing floor and control units in electric power plants, wind turbines and autonomous vehicles.
The IIC IIRA V1.9 and a list of IIC members who contributed to it can be found on the IIC website https://www.iiconsortium.org/IIRA.htm.
About Industrial Internet Consortium
The Industrial Internet Consortium is the world's leading membership program transforming business and society by accelerating the Industrial Internet of Things (IIoT). The IIC delivers a trustworthy IIoT in which the world's systems and devices are securely connected and controlled to deliver transformational outcomes. The Industrial Internet Consortium is a program of the Object Management Group (OMG). For more information, visit http://www.iiconsortium.org.
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SOURCE Industrial Internet Consortium
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