Abstract
The paper which is based on a literature review combined with a case study, spanning manufacturing and process industry contexts, set out to determine whether there is an emerging trend to use a service-oriented architecture (SOA)-based platform supporting microservices while developing and operating automation solutions while also considering effects and implications. The results point out that there is a significant potential, during the lifecycle, to save significant engineering time/effort during the development-related and operations phases while integrating systems and adding new types of sensors or other equipment. In addition, the results indicate that there are also business development advantages when promoting an SOA-based architecture supporting microservices towards monolith architectures and that a cybersecurity baseline can be included as part of the platform baseline. However, there is a threshold, before the benefits can be reaped, in terms of the need to build up a competency and skills set concerning the platform, SOA and microservices, as many providers of automation solutions are still doing the development in a traditional old monolithic style with hard-coded integrations between components and systems. Finally, we see an emerging trend to use a competent SOA-based platform in the development and operation of automation solutions.
Highlights
This paper addresses a literature review combined with a case study, comprising five cases, where service-oriented architecture (SOA)-based platforms supporting microservices, i.e., automation software platforms, are used to develop and operate automation solutions in value-chains pertaining to manufacturing and process industry contexts all over the European Union
The underlying reason to conduct the literature review combined with the case study is that today’s problems related to development and operation of automation software, using traditional development and 1-to-1 integrations is not a viable option
The paper contributes to literature with a literature review combined with a case study, comprising five cases spanning various manufacturing and process industry contexts as well as a large-scale RDI project’s use cases, the results of which point to the fact that there is a potential for improvements exceeding 50% regarding time/efforts during parts of a lifecycle concerning development and operation of automation solutions by using an SOA-based platform supporting microservices
Summary
This paper addresses a literature review combined with a case study, comprising five cases, where service-oriented architecture (SOA)-based platforms supporting microservices, i.e., automation software platforms, are used to develop and operate automation solutions in value-chains pertaining to manufacturing and process industry contexts all over the European Union. The current set of problems can be summarized as follows: new functionality with a lot more data available is based on architectures which were not intended for this; high effort/cost is required; solutions are sensitive due to lack of error handling, logging and monitoring; it is hard to make integrations and changes; solutions are hard-coded instead of configurable; there are interoperability and protocol version issues, and it is hard to wrap security around solutions, as most do not have any inherent security level [1,2,3,4,5,6,7,8]. The research question posed in the case study addresses how many improvements have been made using an SOA-based platform, compared to traditional development, and where in the lifecycle are the improvements embodied?
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