by Gary Mintchell | Nov 9, 2021 | Enterprise IT, Manufacturing IT, Operations Management, Software, Standards, Uncategorized
Open source predominates in IT. One can find open source growing within OT. I expect more as the younger generation of engineers takes over from the Boomers. My generation has laid a great foundation of standards. These make things better for engineers just trying to get a job done with inadequate resources. A few news items have piled up in my queue. Here is a CESMII announcement followed by several from the Linux Foundation.
SME and CESMII Join Forces to Accelerate Smart Manufacturing Adoption
SME, a non-profit professional association dedicated to advancing manufacturing, and CESMII – The Smart Manufacturing Institute, are partnering to align their resources and educate the industry, helping companies boost productivity, build a strong talent pipeline, and reduce manufacturers’ carbon footprint.
CESMII and SME will address the “digital divide” by connecting manufacturers to technical knowledge. These efforts will especially help small and medium-size companies—a large part of the supply network—to overcome the cost and complexity of automation and digitization that has constrained productivity and growth initiatives.
“The prospect of the Fourth Industrial Revolution catalyzing the revitalization of our manufacturing productivity in the U.S. is real, but still aspirational, and demands a unified effort to accelerate the evolution of this entire ecosystem,” said John Dyck, CEO, CESMII. “We couldn’t be happier to join with SME on this important mission to combine and align efforts with the best interest of the employers and educators in mind.”
Smart Manufacturing Executive Council
The first joint initiative is the formation of a new national Smart Manufacturing Executive Council. It will engage business and technology executives, thought leaders, and visionaries as a “think tank” advocating for the transformation of the ecosystem. It will build on each organization’s history of working with industry giants who volunteer their time and impart their knowledge to benefit the industry.
Members of the council will act as ambassadors to drive the national conversation and vision for smart manufacturing in America. Working with policy makers and others, the council will unify the ecosystem around a common set of interoperability, transparency, sustainability and resiliency goals and principles for the smart manufacturing ecosystem.
Focus on Manufacturing Workforce
The need for richer, scalable education and workforce development is more important than ever.
SME’s training organization, Tooling U-SME, is the industry’s leading learning and development solutions provider, working with thousands of companies, including more than half of all Fortune 500 manufacturers as well as 800 educational institutions across the country. CESMII has in-depth training content on smart manufacturing technology, business practices, and workforce development. Leveraging Tooling U-SME’s extensive reach into industry and academia, the synergistically combined CESMII and Tooling U-SME training portfolios and new content collaborations will expedite smart manufacturing adoption, driving progress through transformational workforce development.
Through this national collaboration, Tooling U-SME will become a key partner for CESMII for advancing education and workforce development around smart manufacturing.
“Manufacturers are looking for a more effective, future-proof approach to upskill their workforce, and we believe that the best way to accomplish that is for CESMII and Tooling U-SME to work together,” said Conrad Leiva, Vice President of Ecosystem and Workforce Education at CESMII. “This partnership brings together the deep domain expertise and necessary skills with the know-how to package education, work with employers and schools and effectively deliver it at scale nationally.
Linux Foundation Announces NextArch Foundation
The Linux Foundation announced the NextArch Foundation. The new Foundation is a neutral home for open source developers and contributors to build next-generation architecture that can support compatibility between an increasing array of microservices.
Cloud-native computing, Artificial Intelligence (AI), the Internet of Things (IoT), Edge computing and much more have led businesses down a path of massive opportunity and transformation. According to market research, the global digital transformation market size was valued at USD 336.14 billion in 2020 and is expected to grow at a compound annual growth rate (CAGR) of 23.6% from 2021 to 2028. But a lack of intelligent, centralized architecture is preventing enterprises and the developers who are creating innovation based on these technologies to fully realize their promise.
“Developers today have to make what feel like impossible decisions among different technical infrastructures and the proper tool for a variety of problems,” said Jim Zemlin, Executive Director of the Linux Foundation. “Every tool brings learning costs and complexities that developers don’t have the time to navigate yet there’s the expectation that they keep up with accelerated development and innovation. NextArch Foundation will improve ease of use and reduce the cost for developers to drive the evolution of next-generation technology architectures.”
Next-generation architecture describes a variety of innovations in architecture, from data storage and heterogeneous hardware to engineering productivity, telecommunications and much more. Until now, there has been no ecosystem to address this massive challenge. NextArch will leverage infrastructure abstraction solutions through architecture and design and automate development, operations and project processes to increase the autonomy of development teams. Enterprises will gain easy to use and cost-effective tools to solve the problems of productization and commercialization in their digital transformation journey.
Linux Foundation and Graviti Announce Project OpenBytes to Make Open Data More Accessible to All
The Linux Foundation announced the new OpenBytes project spearheaded by Graviti. Project OpenBytes is dedicated to making open data more available and accessible through the creation of data standards and formats.
Edward Cui is the founder of Graviti and a former machine learning expert within Uber’s Advanced Technologies Group. “For a long time, scores of AI projects were held up by a general lack of high-quality data from real use cases,” Cui said. “Acquiring higher quality data is paramount if AI development is to progress. To accomplish that, an open data community built on collaboration and innovation is urgently needed. Graviti believes it’s our social responsibility to play our part.”
By creating an open data standard and format, Project OpenBytes can reduce data contributors’ liability risks. Dataset holders are often reluctant to share their datasets publicly due to their lack of knowledge on various data licenses. If data contributors understand their ownership of data is well protected and their data will not be misused, more open data becomes accessible.
Project OpenBytes will also create a standard format of data published, shared, and exchanged on its open platform. A unified format will help data contributors and consumers easily find the relevant data they need and make collaboration easier. These OpenBytes functions will make high-quality data more available and accessible, which is significantly valuable to the whole AI community and will save a large amount of monetary and labor resources on repetitive data collecting.
The largest tech companies have already realized the potential of open data and how it can lead to novel academic machine learning breakthroughs and generate significant business value. However, there isn’t a well-established open data community with neutral and transparent governance across various organizations in a collaborative effort. Under the governance of the Linux Foundation, OpenBytes aims to create data standards and formats, enable contributions of good-quality data and, more importantly, be governed in a collaborative and transparent way.
Linux Foundation Announces Security Enhancements to its LFX Community Platform to Protect Software Supply Chain
The Linux Foundation announced it has enhanced its free LFX Security offering so open source projects can secure their code and reduce non-inclusive language.
The LFX platform hosts community tools for security, fundraising, community growth, project health, mentorship and more. It supports projects and empowers open source teams to write better, more secure code, drive engagement and grow sustainable ecosystems.
The LFX Security module now includes automatic scanning for secrets-in-code and non-inclusive language, adding to its existing comprehensive automated vulnerability detection capabilities. Software security firm BluBracket has contributed this functionality to open source software projects under LFX as part of its mission of making software safer and more secure. This functionality builds on contributions from leader in developer security, Snyk, now making LFX the leading vulnerability detection platform for the open source community.
The need for a community-supported and freely available code scanning is clear, especially in light of recent attacks on core software projects and recent the White House Executive Order calling for improved software supply chain security. LFX is the first and only community tool designed to make software projects of all kinds more secure and inclusive.
LFX Security now includes:
● Vulnerabilities Detection: Detect vulnerabilities in open source components and dependencies and provide fixes and recommendations to those vulnerabilities. LFX tracks how many known vulnerabilities have been found in open source Projects, identifies if those vulnerabilities have been fixed in code commits and then reports on the number of fixes per project through an intuitive dashboard. Fixing known open source vulnerabilities in open source projects helps cleanse software supply chains at their source and greatly enhances the quality and security of code further downstream in development pipelines. Snyk has provided this functionality for the community and helped open source software projects remediate nearly 12,000 known security vulnerabilities in their code.
● Code Secrets: Detect secrets-in-code such as passwords, credentials, keys and access tokens both pre- and post-commit. These secrets are used by hackers to gain entry into repositories and other important code infrastructure. BluBracket is the leading provider of secrets detection technology in the industry and has contributed these features to the Linux Foundation LFX community.
● Non-Inclusive Language: Detect non-inclusive language used in project code, which is a barrier in creating a welcoming and inclusive community. BluBracket worked with the Inclusive Naming Initiative on this functionality.
by Gary Mintchell | Oct 18, 2021 | Commentary, Networking, News, Standards
Time Sensitive Networking (TSN) holds promise as a real-time and deterministic extension of Ethernet. Principle backers come from the audio-visual industry looking for a standard solution for improving streaming audio/video synchronization. Another obvious benefactor would be industrial manufacturing and production applications.
Standards have little use without testing and certification. The Avnu Alliance moves the standard another step closer to realization with the release of globally scaled testing capabilities. Details from the press release follow.
Announcement
Avnu Alliance®, the industry consortium driving open, standards-based deterministic networking, announced globally scaled testing capabilities and a comprehensive update of its certification testing procedures at newly authorized, commercial test houses around the world. This advanced global certification program will streamline certification testing of devices with Time Sensitive Networking (TSN) capabilities, including devices implementing the Milan network protocol (using TSN) for professional media, making testing easier and more convenient for Avnu members around the world.
Global Locations
Avnu announces expanded testing at new Registered Test Facilities (RTF) around the world: Allion in Taipei City, Taiwan; Excelfore in Tokyo, Japan; and Granite River Labs in both Santa Clara, CA, USA and Karlsruhe, Germany. These well-recognized, globally dispersed test labs will lower shipping times, offer competitive pricing models, and streamline the process for members seeking to certify products and make communications between testing sites and vendors seamless. These additional test sites and locations give Avnu Alliance greater ability to scale testing capacity to meet demand, while also allowing device manufacturers to enter products into testing with less lead time prior to release.
“As a part of standard networking technology, TSN is built and deployed around the world,” says Greg Schlechter, president of the Avnu Alliance. “Avnu recognized that, for device certification to keep pace with innovation, we needed to expand our testing capabilities and global footprint to increase accessibilty, enable the growth of both test programs and manufacturers, and in general support the diversity of the growing TSN ecosystem.”
Avnu’s goal is to enable an ecosystem of interoperable, secure, low-latency, and highly reliable networked devices using TSN as part of the open IEEE 802.1 Ethernet standards. Avnu has a variety of test plans and programs to help manufacturers implementing TSN ensure interoperability and demonstrate that to their markets through certification programs.
Avnu’s membership brings together experts in automotive, industrial, and networked media as well as all perspectives from across the value chain, including infrastructure providers, silicon and component vendors, and end-device manufacturers. These members collaborate on the current and future requirements for an interoperable TSN ecosystem and define and create conformance test procedures, plans, scripts, and tools for devices and products that leverage Milan and TSN. Those test scripts and procedures are licensed to designated, third-party testing laboratories, where the tests are independently conducted to validate compliance with the specifications.
Certification Management System and Product Registry
To streamline the new program, Avnu has launched a new testing portal and comprehensive Certification Management System (CMS) with simplified and intelligent certification workflows for seamless, transparent communication. Designed and maintained by experienced certification management professionals, the new CMS provides members with real-time visibility into the testing process and the ability to track device progress and timelines.
In this web-based portal, Avnu members can submit products for testing, view results, respond to nonconformance issues, and manage the public listing of newly Certified products. All certification and testing documents are easily managed in a single, centralized location. Intelligent workflows feed data and visibility back to Avnu’s Certification Work Group to track the number of products in certification at each lab, enabling Avnu to scale the capabilities as needed to support testing demand.
In addition, Avnu’s certification website will launch a new product registry with a robust database showing all products currently Certified by Avnu. Advanced filtering capabilities make it easy for members’ customers and end-users to search for products to specify and design into systems.
“With this new certification platform, Avnu continues to innovate in making pre-certification and certification testing easier, faster, and more convenient for member companies, test equipment manufacturers, and test facilities around the world,” added Ed Agis, Certification Work Group co-chair. “Interoperability ultimately accelerates a broader ecosystem of devices, which is the long-term advantage of this advanced global certification platform.”
The certification program will first support testing and certification for Milan devices at new locations. Testing services will continue to be offered at the University of New Hampshire InterOperability Lab. The testing program will continue to evolve; additional certification test plans will become available through these global facilities as the TSN ecosystem grows.
by Gary Mintchell | Oct 16, 2021 | Business, News, Standards
This is the longest I have gone without posting in many years. It has been a busy week around the Manufacturing Connection office, though. I have been assigning soccer officials to games for 33 years. There were more schedule changes, injuries, and dropped games than any previous year. Not to mention several cases of Covid taking referees out for up to three weeks. Today is the last day of my season, so it’s back to normal. Further sign of back to normal comes from using my United and Marriott apps to book a trip to Houston for Rockwell Automation’s Automation Fair. I will be down there November 9-11. If you’re there, ping me. Perhaps we can meet for a coffee or something and some conversation.
Naturally, much news accumulated. Following are some snippets of information. I will follow up with more detailed essays next week.
Schneider Electric Innovation Summit
Schneider Electric held a world-wide Innovation Summit in October. The company’s overall focus seems to be electrical power. But it has a significant automation portfolio. The Summit theme was Powering The Digital Economy and CEO Jean-Pascal Tricoire discussed the many benefits of digitalization. Spokespeople discussed four new offers.
Under the broad theme of Efficiency Chief Marketing Officer Chris Leong discussed Automation Expert. This universal automation solution actually launched last year. It “breaks dependency of hardware and software” with its virtualized controller. Leong noted that the IT world has recognized this architecture for years; it is time for the operations world to adopt.
Under the broad theme of Resiliency, she introduced SmartUPS the Ultra 5Kw. It comes in a 2u form factor with a lighter weight than previous models.
With the broad theme of Sustainability, Leong introduced RM Air Set Medium voltage switches. These gas insulated switches are insulated with pure air and include a small footprint. Also introduced were solutions for electric vehicles. EcoStruxure for emobility includes electric vehicle charger system called pro charger. Also included are Charging Expert that varies charging depending upon time and energy usage, EV Advisor, a cloud based monitor and control of a fleet of chargers.
Emerson Acquires AspenTech, Sort Of
Emerson and AspenTech announced that the companies have entered into a definitive agreement to contribute Emerson’s industrial software businesses – OSI Inc. and the Geological Simulation Software business – to AspenTech creating a new company called New AspenTech.
The transaction accelerates Emerson’s software investment strategy as the company continues to build a higher growth, more diversified and sustainable portfolio, by creating an industrial software company with immediate scale and relevancy. Emerson expects the usual synergies (which realistically never materialize) and flexibility to strategically deploy capital for growth. Software businesses have different financials than hardware ones, and this financial structure may help Emerson in the way a similar financial structure has helped Schneider Electric with AVEVA. New AspenTech will be fully consolidated into Emerson financials and is expected to be accretive to adjusted EPS after year one.
Time Sensitive Networking
Things have been quiet in the Time Sensitive Networking (TSN) area for some time. So, it is refreshing to see the results of some activity. Avnu Alliance announced globally-scaled testing capabilities and a comprehensive update of its certification testing procedures at newly authorized, commercial test houses around the world. This advanced global certification program will streamline certification testing of devices with Time Sensitive Networking (TSN) capabilities, including devices implementing the Milan network protocol (using TSN) for professional media, making testing easier and more convenient for Avnu members around the world.
Blockchain–A New Look
Blockchain has been highly touted as a useful technology for tracking transactions, supply chain, and even IoT. It failed to live up to expectations. In October, I talked with David Iseminger Founder and CEO, Upheaval LLC and developer of Ironweave blockchain. This new technology holds promise for fulfilling blockchain application in manufacturing. This new blockchain technology was built to scale ensuring business continuity, efficient collaboration, and meeting regulatory compliance with automated data creation. Its strength lies in technology that its data is immutable, locked by multiple hashes in each block. It allows millions of interactions per second, and it requires no risky or volatile coins. Finally, each block is independently encrypted with unique keys, it is immune to ransomware, its multiple backups are immediate and automatic, and it allows blocks of any size, any data from small IoT updates to medical images.
Dell Technologies at the Edge
And a few bullet points from Dell Technologies I have lifted from a press release. I once talked with Dell people when they developed the Edge Gateway and had an IoT group. That group has long since dispersed. Everyone I knew is gone except for two who moved into other groups. But, the company still provide some products at the edge.
- Dell EMC VxRail satellite nodes extend automation and lifecycle management capabilities to smallest configuration to date for edge workloads
- Dell Technologies Validated Design for Manufacturing Edge with Litmus helps manufacturers make quick decisions to improve quality and reduce costs
- Dell EMC Edge Gateway connects multiple edge devices across operational technology and IT environments to deliver real-time data insights
- Dell EMC Streaming Data Platform optimizes GPUs to ingest streaming video and supports real-time analytics on Dell EMC VxRail and PowerEdge systems
- Dell Latitude Rugged laptops can withstand harsh edge environments while maintaining high levels of performance and connectivity
by Gary Mintchell | Sep 10, 2021 | Operations Management, Software, Standards
The idea of a software bill of materials seems to be gaining traction. The Linux Foundation has had a group working on a standard. This news details the success of the effort.
The Linux Foundation, the nonprofit organization enabling mass innovation through open source, today announced the Software Package Data Exchange (SPDX) specification has been published as ISO/IEC 5962:2021 and recognized as the open standard for security, license compliance, and other software supply chain artifacts. ISO/IEC JTC 1 is an independent, non-governmental standards body.
Intel, Microsoft, Phillips, Sony, Texas Instruments, Synopsys and VMware are just a handful of the companies using SPDX to communicate Software Bill of Materials (SBOM) information in policies or tools to ensure compliant, secure development across global software supply chains.
“SPDX plays an important role in building more trust and transparency in how software is created, distributed and consumed throughout supply chains. The transition from a de-facto industry standard to a formal ISO/IEC JTC 1 standard positions SPDX for dramatically increased adoption in the global arena,” said Jim Zemlin, executive director, the Linux Foundation. “SPDX is now perfectly positioned to support international requirements for software security and integrity across the supply chain.”
Ninety percent (90%) of a modern application is assembled from open source software components. An SBOM accounts for the software components contained in an application — open source, proprietary, or third-party — and details their quality, license, and security attributes. SBOMs are used as a part of a foundational practice to track and trace components across software supply chains. SBOMs also help to proactively identify software component issues and risks, and establish a starting point for their remediation.
SPDX evolved organically over the last ten years through the collaboration of hundreds of companies, including the leading Software Composition Analysis (SCA) vendors – making it the most robust, mature, and adopted SBOM standard.
To learn more about how companies and open source projects are using SPDX, recordings from the “Building Cybersecurity into Software Supply Chain” Town Hall that was held on August 18th.
ISO/IEC JTC 1 is an independent, non-governmental international organization based in Geneva, Switzerland. Its membership represents more than 165 national standards bodies with experts who share knowledge and develop voluntary, consensus-based, market relevant international standards that support innovation and provide solutions to global challenges.
Supporting Comments
Intel
“Software security and trust are critical to our Industry’s success. Intel has been an early participant in the development of the SPDX specification and utilizes SPDX both internally and externally for a number of software use-cases,” said Melissa Evers, Vice President – Software and Advanced Technology Group, General Manager of Strategy to Execution, Intel.
Microsoft
“Microsoft has adopted SPDX as our SBOM format of choice for software we produce,” says Adrian Diglio, Principal Program Manager of Software Supply Chain Security at Microsoft. “SPDX SBOMs make it easy to produce U.S. Presidential Executive Order compliant SBOMs, and the direction that SPDX is taking with the design of their next gen schema will help further improve the security of the software supply chain.”
Siemens
“With ISO/IEC 5962:2021 we have the first official standard for metadata of software packages. It’s natural that SPDX is that standard, as it’s been the defacto standard for a decade. This will make license compliance in the supply chain much easier, especially because several open source tools like FOSSology, ORT, scancode and sw360 already support SPDX,” said Oliver Fendt, senior manager, open source at Siemens.
Sony
”The Sony team uses various approaches to managing open source compliance and governance,” says Hisashi Tamai, Senior Vice President, Deputy President of R&D Center, Representative of the Software Strategy Committee, Sony Group Corporation. “An example is the use of an OSS management template sheet that is based on SPDX Lite, a compact subset of the SPDX standard. It is important for teams to be able to quickly review the type, version and requirements of software, and using a clear standard is a key part of this process.”
Synopsis
“The Black Duck team from Synopsys has been involved with SPDX since its inception, and I personally had the pleasure of coordinating the activities of the project’s leadership for more than a decade. Representatives from scores of companies have contributed to the important work of developing a standard way of describing and communicating the content of a software package,” said Phil Odence, General Manager, Black Duck Audits.
VMware
“SPDX is the essential common thread among tools under the Automating Compliance Tooling (ACT) Umbrella. SPDX enables tools written in different languages and for different software targets to achieve coherence and interoperability around SBOM production and consumption. SPDX is not just for compliance, either; the well-defined and ever-evolving spec is also able to represent security and supply chain implications. This is incredibly important for the growing community of SBOM tools as they aim to thoroughly represent the intricacies of modern software,” said Rose Judge, ACT TAC Chair and open source engineer at VMware.
Wind River
“The SPDX format greatly facilitates the sharing of software component data across the supply chain. Wind River has been providing a Software Bill of Materials (SBOM) to its customers using the SPDX format for the past 8 years. Often customers will request SBOM data in a custom format. Standardizing on SPDX has enabled us to deliver a higher quality SBOM at a lower cost,” said Mark Gisi, Wind River Open Source Program Office Director and OpenChain Specification Chair.
Founded in 2000, The Linux Foundation is supported by more than 1,000 members and is the world’s leading home for collaboration on open source software, open standards, open data, and open hardware. The Linux Foundation’s projects are critical to the world’s infrastructure including Linux, Kubernetes, Node.js, RISC-V, Hyperledger, Jenkins, and more. The Linux Foundation’s methodology focuses on leveraging best practices and addressing the needs of contributors, users and solution providers to create sustainable models for open collaboration.
by Gary Mintchell | Jun 30, 2021 | Automation, News, Organizations, Standards, Technology
The Open Process Automation Forum has made progress over the past few years. You can see a chain of reports and thoughts I’ve written over that time. These ideas remind me of a phrase we had amongst the graduate assistants when I was in grad school (we were all political philosophy majors), “Operationalize your eschaton!” In other words of Wendy’s restaurants, “Where’s the beef?” Is anything practical going to evolve from all this standards work?
Then an organization called “Coalition for Open Process Automation” contacted me with information about its formation, members, and, best of all, certified products. This is a giant step forward. Check out the press release and website.
The Coalition for Open Process Automation (COPA) is pleased to announce the launch of COPA QuickStart to accelerate the adoption of Industrial Control Systems (ICS). This is aligned with The Open Group O-PAS Standard, a “standards of standards” for industrial process automation developed by the Open Process Automation Forum (OPAF).
COPA is a diverse group of leading IT and OT technology companies, led by innovative newcomers Collaborative Systems Integration of Austin, Texas and CPLANE.ai of Silicon Valley, California. Its partners include veteran industry leaders such as Phoenix Contact, R. Stahl, Supermicro, Nova SMAR, and CODESYS. With the release of COPA QuickStart, the Coalition is applying years of research, collaboration, and investment by members of OPAF to bring ICS systems to market that are built on industry standards for open, secure, and interoperable architectures.
Securing ICS’s from ransomware attacks and state-sponsored hacking is now one of the top priorities of governments and corporations. These cybersecurity issues along with outdated and crumbling infrastructure adds to the imperative to increase value generation and reduce total cost of ownership through digital transformation. The first step in digital transformation for industrial manufactures is Open Process Automation.
The COPA partner companies have engineered COPA QuickStart to incorporate components and technologies from multiple vendors into a single, advanced, and cohesive ICS. The COPA QuickStart system is the catalyst for industrial manufacturers to accelerate their adoption of state-of-the-art ICS systems that greatly improve security, flexibility, and profitability of their operations.
Industrial manufacturers can no longer take a “wait and see” approach to adopting modern and open control systems into their manufacturing operations. Until now, there have been no open control system products available for companies to buy. The COPA QuickStart system provides the critical first step in helping industrial manufacturers to start learning, proving, and adopting open architecture ICS solutions into their operations.
Don Bartusiak, who is known widely as the “Father of Open Process Automation,” previously served as ExxonMobil’s Chief Engineer for Process Control. He said, “industrial manufacturers have repeatedly told me that if O-PAS Standard aligned systems were available, they would buy them. The COPA QuickStart system is our answer to that challenge.” Dr. Bartusiak’s company, Collaborative Systems Integration (CSI) is the systems integrator for the COPA QuickStart offering.
The COPA QuickStart system is designed to accelerate the innovation efforts of leading industrial manufacturers, allowing them to realize the benefits of open systems sooner. The system includes:
A pre-packaged industrial control system, aligned with the O-PAS Standard and carefully engineered with best-of-breed components from Phoenix Contact, R. Stahl, Nova SMAR, Supermicro, CPLANE.ai, CSI, and CODESYS.
CPLANE.ai’s Fusion management software for seamless automation and orchestration across the entire life-cycle of an industrial control system from startup to operate to evolve. CPLANE.ai Fusion leverages capabilities engineered by Intel and is powered by Intel Edge Controls for Industrial.
The Advanced Computing Platform, built by Supermicro and powered by Intel Xeon D processors installed in a versatile short-depth 1U chassis.
Advanced digital technologies demonstrating the value of new capabilities such as fast-cycle Model Predictive Control, Reinforcement Learning Control, AI, and advanced cybersecurity.
Hands-on training modules allowing engineers and executives to rapidly gain a deeper understanding of the next-generation control systems and the value they can deliver.
“Powered by Intel Atom x6000E series and Intel Pentium and Celeron N and J series processors with the Intel Edge Controls for Industrial software, the COPA QuickStart will help accelerate the adoption of OPAF-based control systems,“ said Richard Kerslake, General Manager of Industrial Controls and Robotics at Intel.
Steve Nunn, CEO and President, The Open Group said: “Through defining and promoting Open Process Automation™, OPAF and COPA are united by a common goal of helping industrial manufacturers accelerate their digital transformation initiatives. The launch of COPA QuickStart coupled with new developments to the O-PAS Standard represents a key milestone in the creation of open, secure, and interoperable architectures, which are critical to the future of industrial process automation systems. We are looking forward to continue working with COPA to address industry challenges and drive progress in process automation.”
“COPA QuickStart is the fruit of many years of collaboration by OPAF and COPA members. It is exciting to see the first, standards based open system become commercially available. Open Process Automation is the future, and we are excited to be a catalyst to accelerate that transformation,” shared Bob Hagenau, CEO, CPLANE.ai
First availability of COPA QuickStart system will be in Q3 of 2021. More information is available at www.copacontrol.org or by contacting CPLANE.ai.
About CPLANE.ai
CPLANE.ai automates the orchestration of distributed edge computing across a diverse landscape of hardware and software components. CPLANE.ai removes the complexity of provisioning, managing, securing, and evolving distributed systems. CPLANE.ai’s intelligent software platform automates the coordination and configuration of policies and procedures across multiple layers of distributed cloud infrastructure.
by Gary Mintchell | Jun 16, 2021 | Podcast, Standards
Podcast 227 Open and Interoperable
Imagine laying railroad tracks west from the US east coast and meeting up with a crew laying railroad tracks from the west coast only to discover that the width between the rails was different. Standards make a huge difference.
Open standards, open APIs, and open source all enable interoperability and all make life better for users. My discussions over the past couple of years indicates that US engineers are falling behind in the encouragement and use of these technologies. I hope I’m wrong, and I hope the new generation of engineers pick up these ways of working and move American manufacturing forward. And the rest of the world, too.
