As Head of Solutions Sales and a member of the management team at Microsoft Austria, Wolfgang Leindecker helps Austrian companies to become winners in the digital transformation. Before his move, he was CEO of TTTech Industrial. In this position, he helped drive the global standardization of OPC UA over TSN and the spread of edge computing in the manufacturing sector and was also a member of the supervisory board of a start-up in Silicon Valley.

The Industrial Internet of Things is generating more and more data that needs to be managed. This data complexity needs to be mastered. What role does edge computing play in this?

Leindecker: Edge computing is the decisive factor that makes it possible to manage the rapidly increasing volumes of data and, in particular, the requirements for real-time manipulation of this data.

However, edge computing does not function as a stand-alone solution, but is seamlessly integrated and unfolds its full functionality as a logical extension of the cloud. Edge computing is ultimately the cloud extended by locally distributed computing power.

At the edge, sensor data is pre-selected, software applications are processed or even AI calculations are carried out. What should users bear in mind with regard to the edge software landscape? Which technologies should/must be taken into account

Leindecker: The software environment at the edge must essentially fulfill the following criteria:

• Complete "remote orchestration": all software at the Edge must be able to be completely installed for the first time (as a container or even as a complete virtual machine), updated and parameterized from a central instance. This also applies to edge operating systems.
• Real-time capable handling of huge data streams with open interfaces to the machine world on the one hand and the cloud on the other, as well as local caching of this data.
• Deeply integrated, comprehensive security functions that are subject to an overall concept - "security by design". Without security, Edge Computing technology is useless.

Microsoft offers a comprehensive suite of software modules and integrated partner solutions for this, including Azure IoT Edge, Azure Defender for IoT and a holistic security approach with Azure Sentinel, which detects anomalies and also enables automated responses.

The hardware requirements grow with the tasks. What should users look out for when selecting the right edge computing hardware?

Leindecker: The hardware at the edge must provide sufficient computing power and memory to be able to run a number of applications in virtualized form side by side without them interfering with each other. Modern industrial PCs on the market typically meet these requirements without any problems.

In addition, environmental variables such as permissible temperature ranges, dust and vibration protection must be taken into account.