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In perusing the latest product releases the past week, I stumbled across are recent release by Opto 22. Opto 22 just announced a Node-RED Node for their line of Industrial Programmable Automation Controllers. For those of you (like me) that may not be familiar with Node Red (http://nodered.org/) , Node Red developed by IBM’s Emerging Technologies group (https://www.ibm.com/blogs/emerging-technology/) In a nutshell, Node Red is a light weight java run time for IoT nodes that is supported with a visual programming environment that facilitates rapid deployment of IoT applications. Up until now, the only platforms that supported this Node Red runtime have been the Raspberry pi, IBM Blue Mix, Docker, and several others. A full list of platforms that currently support Node Red are listed at this website (http://nodered.org/docs/). However, to the best of my knowledge up until the Opto 22 announcement no other automation supplier has incorporated Node Red into either a gateway or automation controller. Opto 22’s announcement is intriguing as Node Red brings edge computing to the masses with rapid development tools for data movement to the cloud. From the product description it appears that the Node provides that capability to move PAC tags into the Cloud (Azure, AWS, IBM) on an event driven basis. Whether the Node provides any processing capability to qualify the data or incorporate any other advanced algorithms I leave to the reader for further analysis.
Edge computing has been vibrant topic in the Industrial Internet of Things for the last several years as data quality and security have moved to the forefront. Edge in IIoT is somewhat of an enigma in terms of where the edge really begins. Gateways are being deployed in many factory installations to connect the installed base of automation controllers in the Cloud in a secure manner. Many gateways leave application programming space for data qualification and filtering algorithms. However, the edge can move as close to the process as possible with the extreme case being sensors mounted on equipment. Sensors that have internet connectivity and spare processing capacity are prime examples of computing at the edge. There are already examples of edge sensors for connecting direct on line motors to the cloud. ABB and Siemens (https://wp.me/p6a3pg-Nb) are offering products and services to connect integral horsepower motors to the cloud. The enormous installed base of motors that are not connected is a very enticing target.
It is extremely exciting to see an automation supplier take commercially available IT technologies and productize this for the automation market. Is this going to be a just test bed for manufacturers to evaluate the viability of connecting factory equipment to the cloud? Or is Node Red a viable platform that could effectively provide a common run time spanning from sensors to large automation controllers?