Effective device management is often crucial for the success of industrial internet of things (IIoT) deployments and selecting the right solution, whether built in-house or purchased, can streamline operations, enhance security and ensure scalability as systems grow.
IIoT insights
- Device management is critical to the success of digital transformation efforts.
- Remote monitoring, software updates and security should be considered when evaluating IIoT device management solutions.
- There are benefits and trade-offs of building a custom device management solution versus purchasing an off-the-shelf platform.
The industrial internet of things (IIoT) gateway or edge compute node serves as a key hardware component for many digital transformation initiatives. While decision makers often focus on criteria like hardware costs, licensing fees, protocol support or custom requirements, the ease and cost of implementing device management at scale can be equally or even more critical to the success of a project.
Why device management matters
To understand the importance of device management, it can be helpful to consider a typical IIoT scenario: providing field equipment with a live connection to an Overall Equipment Effectiveness (OEE) platform that stakeholders use to optimize reliability and minimize downtime. This requires:
- Establishing communication paths to the OEE platform over wired or wireless networks
- Configuring devices to collect necessary data from specific field equipment at each site
In an ideal world, the IIoT gateways will never need configuration changes after being installed onsite. Software and hardware would never change or require updating, communication paths would never be disrupted, and service providers would never change their architectures. New sensors or devices would never need to be added, and new capabilities would never be required.
The practical reality is that these ideal conditions are very rare for most digital transformation projects. Industrial IoT often involves highly dynamic conditions, with constant developments in both hardware and software. Without proper device management for your IIoT gateway or edge node, making even simple configuration changes after physical deployment can become difficult, expensive, and time-consuming.
The risks and justifications for skipping device management
Often, customers have difficulty understanding the importance of device management until a situation arises where they regret not having it. In recent example, a drilling equipment provider using IIoT gateways to deliver remote performance metrics experienced a security breach when hackers gained access using default credentials. The attackers installed unauthorized software, generated enormous data plan fees and compromised system integrity. Without a device management platform, the fix required:
- Multiple truck rolls to physical locations
- Establishing remote connections to each unit individually
- Manually executing scripts to apply and verify patches to each unit
With proper device management, the company could have remotely connected to all deployed units and applied the required updates simultaneously without a single truck roll. While device management would not have prevented this kind of security breach, it would have dramatically reduced the time and effort for troubleshooting and recovery. It is critical for organizations to have this capability if they want to support large-scale deployments in an easy, sustainable and cost-effective way.
It will be up to the organization to determine how to prioritize having remote management capabilities, and it may not be required for all situations. One gas turbine manufacturer deliberately designed their IIoT gateway to support only manual, local configuration changes performed by onsite technicians. This strategic decision:
- Managed engineering resources efficiently
- Leveraged existing in-person maintenance infrastructure
There may be other considerations for digital transformation deployments to proceed without any measures in place for device management. Often, the demands of a project do not specifically call out ongoing device management after deployment, and the cost and time to implement such functionality can be difficult to justify in competitive situations. In a recent survey about IIoT and device management, 7% of respondents admitted to taking a “worry about it later” approach to device management. The risk of this approach should be considered carefully, given the potentially enormous cost of making configuration changes in the field when device management is not in place.
The DIY approach to device management
For engineers that plan for device management, there are difficult and challenging trade-offs to consider no matter what approach you decide to use. At one extreme, it is common for both aspiring startups and large established companies to attempt to build their own device management capabilities for a custom edge compute device running Linux. There are both paid and open-source tools to support device management operations, like Ansible and Puppet, as well as supporting technology within Azure and AWS. However, without a staff that is experienced in IT infrastructure management software and tools, it can be enormously costly and time consuming to develop this capability in house. In practice, few organizations have the appetite for the upfront and ongoing costs of a new infrastructure team that can support an in-house IIoT gateway with device management, especially given tight targets for project budget, schedule, pricing and revenue. Conversely, organizations that are fortunate enough to have the right software talent can gain a powerful competitive advantage by building in robust device management from the beginning. This provides them with high resiliency and flexibility at scale so they can deploy and iterate quickly on their offering to their internal or external customers.
The partial approach to device management
Whether they realize it or not, many organizations end up taking a partial approach to device management for their IIoT gateway. For scenarios that rely heavily on cellular connectivity, the cellular router itself is often available with its own device management platform. This allows for monitoring and management of the northbound communication path, but a separate device and process would be required for any updates to the edge node that is polling field devices and sharing that data to the cloud. Secure remote access devices are also an option for remote maintenance tasks. They make it possible for an administrator to remotely connect into an edge node over a secure tunnel and manually collect logs or make configuration changes. In the recent device management survey, 36% were using remote access devices for device management and 29% were relying on the device management capabilities of the cellular router.
Either or both methods can greatly reduce the cost and effort of remote maintenance and updates, but themselves add costs and complexity to the architecture, leading to fragmented silos of management tools and processes that does not scale well. Over time, many organizations using this partial approach realize over time that a unified, purpose-built device management strategy is necessary to address the full lifecycle of IIoT devices.
Turnkey solutions with device management
The market offers numerous standalone turnkey IIoT gateways supporting various connection types or designed for specific proprietary platforms. Turnkey solutions appeal to organizations seeking to avoid the complexity of building custom systems while still maintaining essential control over their IoT infrastructure. However, it can be difficult to properly assess options that may appear similar in product literature but would perform quite differently in real-world deployments, especially with regards to device management capability.
Most turnkey gateways fall into two categories:
- Platform-specific gateways designed to work seamlessly with cloud services or OEE platforms
- Vendor-neutral gateways offering flexibility to connect with multiple systems and protocols
The advantage of turnkey solutions lies in their reduced implementation time and simplified deployment process. However, this convenience sometimes comes with limitations in customization or higher long-term costs through licensing fees. When evaluating these solutions, it’s crucial to look beyond surface-level features and consider the total cost of ownership and maintenance over the expected lifespan of your deployment. Here are some important factors to consider and ask a given vendor about:
- Ease of connection monitoring and alerting capabilities
- Simplicity of network configuration and remote management
- Ability to update multiple devices simultaneously through batch operations
- Firmware update processes, frequency of updates, and associated costs
- Support for custom software or scripts to handle unique requirements
- Underlying technology platform and its long-term viability
- The manufacturer’s experience with IIoT deployments like yours
Security features deserve special attention, as many turnkey solutions offer varying levels of encryption, authentication and access control. Some vendors provide comprehensive security frameworks while others may leave security largely up to the implementer. Additionally, consider how the solution handles data storage, backup, and recovery in case of device failure.
Device management is a key component of digital transformation
Engineers that are evaluating hardware options for their IIoT or digital transformation project have many factors to consider, and device management should be included as one of those factors. An effective way to make a more informed decision is to request a demonstration or trial unit to evaluate usability and integration potential with your existing systems. Whenever possible, test the solution in conditions that closely match your intended deployment environment. Many vendors offer starter kits or evaluation packages specifically designed to help potential customers experience their platform’s capabilities firsthand before committing to a larger implementation.
Oliver Wang is the product marketing manager for Moxa‘s industrial computing lines. Edited by Sheri Kasprzak, managing editor of Automation & Controls, WTWH Media, [email protected].
