A high-level architecture of the DVD for Manufacturing Edge with Litmus solution is detailed in the following diagram:
Figure 6. High-level, architectural view of the DVD for Manufacturing Edge with Litmus
Representations
- At the bottom of the diagram, the OT data sources are represented as the industrial edge. This area shows gateway devices that are connected to IoT sensors using technologies like Bluetooth, Wi-Fi, or IoT-specific protocols such as Zigbee or LoRA. Gateways interfacing directly with industrial equipment through industrial platforms by way of parallel, serial, or Ethernet cabling are also visible here; for example, OPC-UA, or CAN.
- A gateway is typically used to interface IoT sensors or industrial platforms with IT systems and networks.
- Finally, a virtual machine (VM) running Litmus Edge may connect directly to an industrial device by way of Ethernet, depending on its Ethernet and TCP-IP capabilities. In this scenario, high consolidation levels are achieved by running the required translation and applications on Litmus Edge directly in a VM on the enterprise edge.
Note: In the DVD for Manufacturing Edge with Litmus solution, the enterprise edge runs on either VxRail or PowerEdge. Details on these platforms can be reviewed in Solution Detail (Building Blocks).
Several components are represented in the diagram on the Dell Manufacturing Edge, including:
- Litmus Edge VMs - providing the OT data interface and running the required analytics at the edge
- Litmus Edge Manager - the management layer for all VMs and physical gateways running Litmus Edge
- Streaming Data Platform - providing data persistence and high-performance data streaming capability for AI/ML playback and data correlation from data sources at the edge
- Other Edge Applications and Workloads - where the application consolidation features of the DVD for Manufacturing Edge factor in
- With Dell APEX Private Cloud availability and scale, it is possible to run multiple value-driven manufacturing applications and workloads at once. Examples include Computer Vision-based solutions for visual inspection or safety-based use cases, or Application Enablement Platforms (AEPs) that are commonly used in IoT deployments. The Dell Technologies Manufacturing Edge Reference Architecture with PTC is an AEP platform for building specific manufacturing applications, and it can run side by side with the Litmus solution on the same infrastructure.
Finally, the DVD for Manufacturing Edge with Litmus fully integrates into existing on-premises data centers and applications, as well as cloud applications and platforms. This allows for optimal placement of capabilities like analytics and AI across a manufacturer’s IT infrastructure to provide maximum value.
The following figure provides a graphical overview of connecting OT and integrating IT systems to the edge infrastructure:
Figure 7. Connecting OT to the edge infrastructure and integrating to IT systems