High Availability Applied to Industry 4.0
Is it necessary to apply high availability strategies in industrial environments? What challenges does the fourth industrial revolution pose? We'll tell you...
Once the concept of high availability has been defined and the “five nines” the question arises: ?Is it necessary to apply high availability strategies in industrial environments? What challenges does the fourth industrial revolution pose?
In many sectors, the availability of IT-based systems has become as important as the need for electrical power. These highly available computer systems (networks, servers, operating stations, etc.) are designed, installed, and managed with the aim of guaranteeing minimum planned or unplanned downtime.
High availability is not necessary for all types of systems. Multinational companies with multiple work shifts whose business is based on the internet (transactions (banks), online sales (cinemas)…) require high availability as it is necessary for users to have continuous access to the systems. If a user cannot make a transaction or cannot buy their tickets, the provider faces a loss of user confidence in the system and the economic impact that this has on the business.
In industrial environments, there are critical systems and other systems that are not so critical. In previous entries on this blog ( Concepts of high availability: Availability, what is it and how can it be measured? and “The nines of availability, what are they?” ) we presented the example of the pharmaceutical company ABC, which works two shifts (16 hours a day) for 5 days a week (16×5), and although the system may be unavailable without major implications for a maximum of 9 hours, the system is required to have continuous availability the rest of the time.
In regulated environments, FDA regulations require traceability of data, ensuring its total integrity. For this reason, systems are designed with redundant networks and servers in such a way that the non-loss of this data can be guaranteed.
In infrastructures, for example, due to the enactment of the Critical Infrastructure Protection Law (2011), it is of vital importance and mandatory compliance that SCADA systems have high availability strategies, including, among others, the management of changes and security copies of automation assets PLCs, SCADAs, HMIs.
The fourth industrial revolution or Industry 4.0 marks important challenges in the manufacture or provision of services, including the optimization of operations, more flexible, more intelligent, more available systems.
This entire production platform, oriented towards digital transformation, requires a robust and secure industrial computing infrastructure, in which high availability strategies coexist: redundant networks and PLCs, data collection-analysis servers and industrial applications with virtualization and fault tolerance, automation backup management systems (PCs and PLCs), deployment of SCADAs based on client/server technologies (RDS server and zero clients), among others.
According to a study by the consultant Price Waterhouse Cooper entitled “Opportunities and challenges of the industrial internet”: The basis of the fourth industrial revolution is the availability of all relevant information in real time which is achieved by connecting all the elements (or instances) involved in the value chain”.
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