Introduction – Use cases of Industrial Edge

A GitHub repository is available that contains the solution to this hands-on exercise. The solution contains Dockerfile.example files. If you want to run the solution, you will need to rename these dockerfiles to "Dockerfile".

General development process

The development process might look like the workflow in the figure Development workflow for an Industrial Edge app.

The development phase begins with the creation of your own app through coding. The dockerize step starts next, which includes writing the Dockerfile for your app as well as configuring any additional official images that are required. Then the docker-compose command is executed to complete the dockerize step. The next step is to test the app and containers in our development environment. If the testing is successful, the app can then be published, deployed, and operated on Industrial Edge devices. If the testing fails, the errors will be fixed again in the development stage.

A typical app scenario is to preprocess the data before sending it to the cloud. In this scenario, the Industrial Edge is used as a gateway with preprocessing functionality.

However, the Industrial Edge is more than just a gateway. The most common use case in the Industrial Edge environment, which will be implemented in this guide, is to acquire, store, analyze and visualize the data to improve the transparency on the shop floor.

From a service perspective in particular, a typical scenario is to acquire, preprocess, store and export the data for external use, for example in data analytics services.

The figure Common app scenarios in the Industrial Edge shows some typical app scenarios for the Industrial Edge.