Authored by – Ravindra Kelkar, Area VP, Sales & Services, India Sub-continent
As we venture into the age of advancements, manufacturers are investing in technology solutions to improve their business productivity. The digitization of production processes – also known as the Industrial Internet of Things (IIoT) poses entirely new challenges to corporate networks. This is corroborated by a joint report by The Internet and Mobile Association of India (IAMAI) and Deloitte, stating that industrial IoT is expected to surpass the consumer space in India by 2020, as adoption in India gains prominence in sectors like transport and logistics, energy and utilities as well as industrial manufacturing.
Having said this, IIoT requires a strong network infrastructure for its capabilities to take center stage. Digitized production lines, machines, and systems, that are a crucial aspect of IIoT call for a network that guarantees optimal data transfer performance and reacts flexibly to new requirements: a software-defined wide area network (SD-WAN).
The promise of digitization is twofold: greater speed and more flexibility. For example, manufacturers hope that digitization will minimize maintenance windows. The evaluation of machine sensor data by means of big data analysis, and in part artificial intelligence, will enable predictive maintenance, such as the just-in-time replacement of worn parts before malfunction risks statistically increase. At the same time, manufacturers want to be more flexible and retool their machinery faster aided by software – right up to batch size 1 production.
Both aspects increase the demands on the network considerably. A huge amount of sensor data must be transported as rapidly as possible and analyzed in real time, usually on site at the edge of the network (so-called ‘edge computing’). At the same time, it’s important to collect analysis and trending data in the corporate data center, while other data pools must be shared with public cloud services. More flexible production means far more frequent and faster changes to network component policies.
These challenging network requirements can only be met with substantial effort when using traditional network equipment. That is why the WAN is now following the same path that forward-looking companies have already taken in the data center – they utilize software-defined networking (SDN). In the IIoT age, flexibility and simple, software-defined administration are no longer limited to data centers but are needed everywhere – from the cloud to the data center to the edge, i.e. to the production lines, retail stores, or connected imaging machines in hospitals.
An SD-WAN enables a policy-driven, application-specific definition of how network traffic is to be handled. The network team can specify alternative routes in case of an incident (e.g. a bandwidth bottleneck or a cable failure). SD-WAN solutions not only provide interruption-free failover, but also continuous intelligent load distribution between transfer paths, in accordance with application requirements. Critical data traffic can be given preferential treatment using quality-of-service mechanisms. At the same time, an SD-WAN appliance accelerates data traffic by means of data compression, deduplication, and optimization techniques at the network protocol level. It integrates seamlessly into the existing routing topology and can be managed from anywhere via the cloud.
Just as important, using SD-WAN technology the network team can segment data traffic as required by creating secure virtual subnets. For example, a retail chain’s IT organization can set up guest VLANs in branch offices from a central location using virtual routing and forwarding (VRF). This network segmentation is just as useful and critical in production facilities or hospitals. Here, too, VRF provides the necessary flexibility for implementing network changes, while analytics features deliver the real-time overview that the network administrator and the security team demand.
While India is still in the process of building a hospitable and sustainable IoT ecosystem, ensuring steady development of policies, standards and best practices for IoT connectivity is of utmost importance. In the age of digitization, software-defined networking must not be limited to the data center but must also reach the edge – smart IIoT equipment that requires a smart network.
