What You Need from an Edge Computing Platform

Edge computing is here and its use is growing. Three factors are contributing to significant growth in data creation and processing at the edge:

1. More data being created and used in manufacturing facilities than ever before.
2. The connectivity, cost and real-time performance of cloud computing isn’t suitable for many new digital solutions to improve manufacturing operations.
3. Controlling data security, quality and life-cycle management at the edge doesn’t scale without a strategy for distributed edge management.

The over-arching market trend is that the operations technology (OT) space has been underserved and we’re seeing fast-changing dynamics at the edge, with a continued focus on simplification, efficiency and security.

Scale to Edge

To meet these challenges, digital transformation (DX) leaders should build a strategy in which the need for edge computing is made clear for the long-term. To maximize edge-deployment success, allocate OT and IT personnel and train them in modern edge-management capabilities.

An edge management strategy should unlock these capabilities for the OT administrators in the following ways.

Higher Productivity and Efficiency. The OT administrators should be able to automatically discover and identify all edge devices in the plant. Centralized, zero-touch edge device deployment is key here. Once all the edge devices are registered, OT administrators can remotely manage the entire fleet of devices for software maintenance without having to send anyone onsite.

In addition, they can remotely deploy apps on these edge devices for targeting different OT use cases in a simple and scalable manner.

Superior Security Posture. Security shouldn’t be an afterthought; it should be pervasively visible throughout the solution. For scalability, the edge needs to be protected from cyberattacks with industry standard security policies, hardware-level keys and app-level firewalls. The edge devices should be secured with a zero-trust security paradigm, while providing integrated visibility, audit and compliance.

Better Manageability and Flexibility. OT administrators should be able to address simple and complex use cases with a single edge-management solution. They should be able to bring their own hardware, apps and send operational data to the cloud provider of choice. Obviously, this should encompass a single pane of visibility for managing edge devices and apps.

Pillars of Edge Management Solutions

To empower OT administrators at the right level, DX leaders should look for a comprehensive edge management solution that can deliver on the above-mentioned capabilities. We consider the following as the key pillars of a solid edge management solution, without which you can’t — rather, shouldn’t — live without.

Edge Device Management. To start, a robust edge management solution should onboard edge devices with single-touch provisioning. While provisioning can be a multilayered and painful process, all that complexity needs to be simplified to offer seamless authentication with pre-certified hardware.

Once provisioned, the edge computers should be able to connect easily to the management plane. Also, each device should be configurable with a predefined personality template that could be shared across multiple devices.

Finally, once the devices are provisioned and configured, it’s important to view the telemetry data per device and track the memory, CPUs and storage usage to optimize operations.

Fleet Management. Once the edge devices are ready to be individually managed by the edge management solution, the ability to manage fleets of devices with flexibility and security is next. OT staff should be able to set personalities for similar machines for consistency and security, achieve security with zero local access or configuration changes and control app instances per device.

Edge intelligence is delivered through apps on the edge devices, so app management is a big part of edge management. The edge management solution should provide the ability to deploy app schedules at will, as follows:

• Set rules for which apps can be deployed to the fleet.
• Track versions for each immutable app.
• Orchestrate seamless cutover between app versions.
• Choose deployment hours per node.
• Catch up on productivity even when network connectivity is lost intermittently.

Private/Public App Marketplace. An app marketplace is key to running business logic at the edge and can be a strategic differentiator for industrial operations. OT admins should be able to find recommend apps (public apps), bring their own apps from other vendors and build apps themselves (private apps). An app marketplace that can support modern containers, legacy apps in virtual machines, and cluster-aware apps can greatly speed up deployment while being ready for the future.

Public edge apps can be curated by the edge management solution vendor, while the private edge apps can be created and deployed in containers or virtual machines based on internal company apps. OT administrators should be able to control visibility of these apps to authorized users and allow them to share with others as needed.

Security. While the edge expands the impact of DX initiatives, it also creates opportunities for cyberattacks. Numerous supply chain crises have been created from a vulnerable attack surface in industrial plants.

The answer is to implement a zero-trust security model for securing edge devices at the silicon level. The devices should be onboarded using cryptographic hardware root of trust and only configurable from a central location; local configuration changes should be disabled to prevent tampering.

The edge devices must have security profiles, role/policy-based access control and distributed firewalls at app levels to segment network traffic. At a minimum, all data in transit or rest should be encrypted at an end-to-end level. The security capabilities should be complete with integrated visibility, audit and compliance.

Open Standards. Adhering to open standards creates wider possibilities for building on top of the latest industry conventions and reduces situations where you might have to completely rewire the solution architecture. In closed, proprietary systems, users are stuck with whatever the single provider determines is best.

In general, open industry standards help improve the quality of products, creating more opportunities to innovate. Organizations can avoid interoperability issues within their diverse infrastructures and continue growth, innovation and customer acceptance. A robust edge management solution that embodies open standards allows users to manage the widest variety of apps and devices.

Business Outcomes

Any industrial organization taking advantage of a robust edge-management solution we’ve described will no doubt benefit. First, the DX initiatives will see faster time to value overall by eliminating administrative and scheduling delays that occur when sending personnel on-site to manage edge device across sites.

Second, OT administrators will experience enhanced productivity, repeatability and elimination of manual errors while managing the edge devices.

Third, due to a centralized edge management solution with a low, capped and predictable cost structure, the total cost of ownership and implementation will be reduced at an organization level.

Fourth, DX leaders can build best of breed solutions on top of a secure and open architecture.

Finally, DX leaders can scale edge DX initiatives with innovative use cases across lines, plants and sites with existing resources.

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