CIOReview | | 9 AUGUST 2022measurements, describing the context in which it is generated) so that in later stages it can be used to support business processes in IT systems and data analytics, the OT/IT integration.Quite often, you will see that the data stored in operational systems are in general not exposed to IT systems, and if needed, it is difficult to get to that data. Industrial protocols like Modbus or classic OPC are not well suited to be used in modern application landscapes running in the cloud nor do IT business systems support them. Therefore Vopak developed an OT/IT architecture that is capable of overcoming the challenges of availability and communication while ensuring adequate security.THE ARCHITECTURE HAS THE FOLLOWING PRINCIPLES:1. move away from all the industrial protocols as soon as possible and transform to standardised IP based communication;2. process data close to the source as possible to support real-time analytics and prevent unnecessary data transfers and external dependencies;3. contextualize data to maximize usage in various systems;4. aggregate all data of all Vopak terminals centrally to ease access to the data.USING STANDARDISED PROTOCOLS FOR IIOT COMMUNICATIONThe above principles are realised by means of what Vopak calls a device gateway and an edge gateway. The device gateway is a service in the operational domain that can communicate with field devices and systems using various industrial protocols and translates these into a standard protocol, suitable for the machine to machine communication. In this way, a standard and secure method of exposing data and communication to operational systems has been implemented. For terminal to cloud communication, Vopak chose a lightweight messaging protocol to be flexible in connecting other systems and devices in the future (when needed).ADDING CONTEXT TO THE DATAThe edge gateway that is deployed reads the data from the device gateway. This is the first touchpoint of IT with OT. The data that needs to be read can be configured in the asset management system. This enables the edge gateway to associate the data to registered assets and metadata (like the unit of measures, device identifiers, tolerances, etc.). The edge complements the data payload received from the operational systems to a more rich data structure that is ready to be used for consumption and analysis.ANALYSE AND STORE AT THE EDGEThe edge can also analyse the streaming data as it comes in, before eventually sending it to the cloud. This ensures that real-time operations can profit from outcomes of analytical models or detected events without dependency on the cloud. It also prevents unnecessary data communication to the cloud. A local historian is safekeeping the data as it passes the edge gateway, but also serves as a cost-effective replacement of traditional historians.MAKE THE DATA AVAILABLEAfter processing on edge, data is sent to a cloud broker who makes the data available to other consumers in near real-time. Data is stored in an aggregated data store that can be used by various consumers by means of APIs. Access to the latest recorded data, historical data, or distilled events is all realised by these APIs. By using cloud technologies and cloud services, the central infrastructure of Vopak's IIoT architecture is highly available, flexible and scalable so that it can support the current and future use cases.The edge is the basis of the OT/IT integration at Vopak. With the device and edge gateways in place on all terminals, using open and industry standards, Vopak is capable of exposing field data in a standardised way. Using off-the-shelve services for protocol translation on the device gateway and a platform that allows high customisation on edge, Vopak can put effort into creating the most value out of the data. Vopak uses edge technology to make the operational data available in the cloud; add context information to the operational data; pre-process, aggregate, and filter operational data at the terminal, to limit cloud communication
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