Enhancing IIoT infrastructures with Kubernetes: Advanced Edge Cluster Management

This article proposes a secure and robust edge deployment strategy for the Industrial Internet of Things (IIoT) based on Kubernetes. The proposed solution, developed for the Factory+ framework, leverages Kubernetes to configure and manage the required edge infrastructure to connect devices and applications with central Factory+ components. Factory+ is an open and modular framework that establishes the digital blueprints necessary for an IIoT infrastructure. The infrastructure is edgedriven, utilizing edge agents that collect and standardize data from various devices, which is then transmitted via MQTT and stored in a central data warehouse. The Advanced Manufacturing Research Centre (AMRC) has implemented Factory+ through the open-source AMRC Connectivity Stack (ACS), in which Kubernetes clusters are used to manage the deployment and configuration of edge agents, ensuring secure, efficient, and reliable operations. This article details core components of Factory+, the Kubernetes cluster model adopted within ACS, deployment use cases, and the processes for creating and managing edge clusters.