This increases flexibility and responsiveness in production while reducing the volume of data sent to the cloud.

Hosting applications at the network edge on a single device

In production, computing power and space are often limited. As a result, manufacturers only have limited options for running applications at the network edge. Software virtualization is an excellent way to overcome this challenge. TTTech Industrial's Nerve edge computing platform provides a secure, virtualized software environment that allows customers to run multiple industrial applications side-by-side on a standard industrial PC. This reduces the number of devices required in the control cabinet without compromising the functionality of applications.

© TTTech Industrial Automation AG

Nerve offers a range of different options for hosting applications at the network edge. Users can run the software either in Docker containers or entirely within a virtual machine. Nerve is also optimized for running virtual machines in real time. Critical tasks can be executed there at maximum speed. This makes it possible to transfer industrial PLC applications to a virtual environment without losing performance guarantees.

Online management of applications from anywhere

All applications hosted in the Nerve software environment at the network edge can be managed from anywhere using the web-based Nerve Management System. Once a Docker container or virtual machine has been uploaded to the Nerve Management System repository, it can be rolled out to machines and factories around the world with just one click, even for non-IT staff.

With Nerve, manufacturers and machine builders can roll out their own software (including legacy software applications) as well as third-party applications. Several useful applications and connectors are already pre-installed in Nerve to make it easy to get started and to provide advanced features for industrial use cases.

Practical functions for getting started

© TTTech Industrial Automation AG

Here we take a closer look at three of the supported applications that are pre-installed in Nerve:

Crosser

Crosser is a software for streaming analytics and integration. It runs on Nerve at the network edge and connects to cloud services. Nerve collects data from Ethernet fieldbuses such as PROFINET, EtherCAT or Modbus and makes it available to the Crosser software for real-time processing and streaming. This information can be used for condition monitoring and predictive maintenance applications. A free trial version of Crosser is available as a deployed workload in Nerve. Users get access to:

• Ready-to-use zero-code modules with intuitive user interface
• Commercially supported and centrally managed software with outstanding security features
• High-speed data processing at the source, reducing the need for expensive cloud services

CODESYS

CODESYS is an IEC 61131-3 control programming tool that runs in Nerve on a real-time optimized virtual machine. The virtual machine is optimized for real-time performance and allows users to run control programs with cycle times down to 1 ms. CODESYS can also be used to capture high-speed data from various Ethernet fieldbuses, which is converted to OPC UA data and shared with other applications running in Nerve. Users can:

• Capture data at high speed and share it instantly with other applications at the network edge
• Create programs locally on one machine and then roll them out to other machines
• Run real-time control applications alongside other applications without impacting performance

Azure IoT Hub

Azure IoT Hub is a cloud-hosted managed service that acts as a centralized messaging hub for bi-directional communication between applications in the cloud and managed devices at the network edge. Nerve connects to the Azure IoT Hub, which can then be used as a gateway to other Azure services such as Azure Machine Learning or Azure Data Lake. Azure IoT Hub is available via an integrated connector from Nerve. Users benefit from:

• Bidirectional communication between Nerve nodes and Azure
• Connectivity to Microsoft services that provide powerful data analytics
• Reliable sending of commands and notifications to connected Nerve nodes, even if connectivity is interrupted in between

Benefit from an open, flexible edge computing platform

Nerve gives customers full flexibility to combine some or all of these applications at the network edge or to roll out and run applications from another source. If you would like to try Nerve for yourself, register for our free trial at www.tttech-industrial.com/trynerve