ARCHITECTURE EXAMPLE
A proposed read-only data path for mixed Siemens and Rockwell equipment, with explicit commissioning checks.
For Manufacturing leaders · Digital manufacturing teams · Plant engineering
A mixed-controller facility needs consistent machine information for operations and analytics while preserving local machine control and working within approved shutdown windows.
Candidate stack: Siemens S7 and Rockwell ControlLogix · OnLogic Karbon 800 · Kepware · HighByte Intelligence Hub · Eclipse Mosquitto · Siemens SCALANCE. Final selection depends on the actual site, supported versions, licenses and intended use.
Inventory firmware, supported drivers, tag ownership, connection limits and current scan and communication load. EtherNet/IP and PROFINET describe field networks; select and verify the actual controller data driver rather than assuming a fieldbus connection is automatically read-only.
Evaluate OnLogic hardware, operating system and application compatibility for the environment. Use approved read-only controller credentials and connector settings; throttle polling and measure its effect on the controller.
Use Kepware for supported controller connectivity and HighByte for equipment identity, units, UTC timestamps and data quality. Agree the ISA-95 equipment hierarchy and message contract with downstream owners.
Use a Sparkplug-capable publisher with an MQTT broker such as Mosquitto. The publisher implements Sparkplug payloads and lifecycle; the broker transports MQTT. Terminate or relay traffic in an industrial DMZ where required by the site design.
Sanitized conceptual view. Each numbered boundary requires an approved interface; this is not an installation drawing.
No operational impact has been verified for this proposed architecture. The blueprint describes intended benefits; dated baseline and post-change measurements, the test period and acceptance by the responsible plant owner are needed before publishing them as achieved results.
Agree the baseline, test conditions, acceptance limits and evidence owners before implementation.
| Measure | Evidence to collect |
|---|---|
| Controller impact | Record scan time, communication load and tag freshness before and during the pilot; compare against limits agreed with the plant. |
| Latency and bandwidth | Measure source-to-consumer age and bytes at equivalent loads and sampling rates. Agree the target before testing. |
| Recovery and onboarding | Test outage buffering, replay, duplicates and quality flags; time a second asset onboarding using the same model. |
These deliverables would form part of an agreed engagement. This page does not establish certification, regulatory approval, guaranteed availability or an achieved operational result.
Product documentation and guidance support design review; they do not verify a project outcome.
