1The Rise of Smart Manufacturing
The digital transformation of industries not only establishes the development direction of the Industrial Internet of Things (IoT) and Industry 4.0 (I4.0) but also brings new opportunities to the manufacturing sector—smart manufacturing. The goal of smart manufacturing is to convert all data and information from interconnected machines into meaningful insights, thereby improving the efficiency and productivity of the entire ecosystem. Big data analytics make this goal achievable. However, as the amount of long-term analysis continues to increase, the volume of data transmitted to the cloud may vary due to factors such as cost-effectiveness of feedback and data ownership issues. Therefore, to benefit from data analysis, a substantial demand for edge processing and data storage must be met.
Figure 1: IoT Gateways and Edge Servers in Smart Manufacturing
2The Role of Industrial IoT Gateways
The deployment of smart factories or most industrial IoT is composed of highly heterogeneous devices, newer sensors, and combinations of endpoints and devices. Industrial IoT gateways connect all these devices and bring them into the IP domain for further edge processing or feedback to the cloud.
To ensure that IoT devices operate correctly, a series of requirements must be met for industrial IoT gateways, such as supporting standard Ethernet for wired interfaces, controller area networks, and industrial Ethernet protocols; supporting various wireless protocols such as Bluetooth and Wi-Fi; and industrial IoT gateways must also withstand harsh environments that may be encountered in smart production workshops and connect the factory’s internal infrastructure to the external environment, thus they must support high levels of network security features.
3Advantages of Using IoT Gateways in Smart Manufacturing
Today, the gateways that once “fought alone” are undergoing rapid transformation, and IoT gateways will provide more advanced features and functions:
• Interoperability
• Security
• Load balancing for computing tasks
• Reducing endpoint bottlenecks and improving bandwidth efficiency
• Local storage
4The Role of Edge Servers
Since edge servers in manufacturing environments often need to provide continuous recording and analysis capabilities around the clock, edge servers can analyze real-time data, stored historical sensor data, and factory contextual data through rules, machine learning, and deep learning, achieving predictive maintenance to reduce downtime and improve the operational efficiency of machines and factory workflows. To achieve this, most cloud platforms like Microsoft Azure® and Amazon Web Services® (AWS®), as well as enterprise resource planning (ERP) solutions provided by companies like SAP or Oracle, have been committed to supporting unified distributed deployments between cloud and edge computing layers. Solution managers can view the analytics and data between cloud and edge through a common dashboard, and can also monitor, learn, and optimize continuously to improve insights and outcomes, thereby increasing the return on investment (ROI) of their smart manufacturing deployments.
5The Importance of Storage Choices
For IoT gateways and edge servers used in industrial/smart manufacturing deployments, storage choices are extremely important. Decision-makers should consider conducting a comprehensive solution assessment, which includes: qualification and product availability timelines, obsolescence management, performance, and quality and reliability requirements.
For 25 years, Micron Technology has closely collaborated with industrial customers and served them, gaining deep insights into the challenges and business requirements faced by customers in this market, and based on this, Micron Technology has launched its Industrial Quotient (IQ). This Industrial Quotient embodies the mindset that “selecting the right electronic components and storage solutions early in the design process is crucial for long-term success,” which not only helps meet the functional requirements of products but also ensures long-term quality and reliability of products in various harsh environments or industrial use cases, while simplifying product lifecycle management and reducing total ownership costs.
6Strong Partnership: Micron Technology Industrial Quotient + Solid State Drives
Due to the more rigorous ruggedness and quality testing of solid-state drives, they have a longer lifespan and higher reliability. Therefore, industrial-grade solid-state drives are a better choice compared to typical client solid-state drives. Micron Technology understands the storage requirements of edge servers and IoT gateways and offers one of the industry’s most rugged and powerful industrial-grade solid-state drive product lines—the Micron® M500IT solid-state drive. With a wider operating temperature range, strong data security, data path, and static data power loss protection, the M500IT solid-state drive meets the stringent requirements of industrial applications in terms of size, power consumption, and cost.
7Conclusion
IoT gateways and edge servers are expected to become key elements in smart manufacturing deployments. Choosing the right memory and storage solutions will be critical for successful deployment and achieving the best return on investment.
For 25 years, Micron Technology has been a trusted advisor to embedded product customers. Not only does it truly understand the unique needs of this market, possessing profound application-level expertise, but its product portfolio is also designed with these aspects in mind. Most importantly, Micron has introduced a mindset of “delivering continuous value to customers” in the market, as Micron firmly believes that the aforementioned Industrial Quotient (IQ) is crucial for customer success.
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