Software defined industrial network: Architecture and edge offloading strategy

Abstract

The integration of the internet and the traditional manufacturing industry has identified the “Industrial Internet of Things” (IIoT) as a popular research topic. However, traditional industrial networks continue to face challenges of resource management and limited raw data storage and computation capacity. In this paper, we propose a Software Defined Industrial Network (SDIN) architecture to address the existing drawbacks in IIoT such as resource utilization, data processing and system compatibility. The architecture is developed based on the Software Defined Network (SDN) architecture, combining hierarchical cloud and edge computing technologies. Based on the SDIN architecture, a novel centralized computation offloading strategy in industrial application is proposed. The simulation results confirm that the SDIN architecture is feasible and effective in the application of edge computing.