Data Infrastructures Paradigms

In the era of Industry 4.0, data has become a critical driver of innovation and competitiveness in manufacturing. The up-take of technologies such as IoT, AI, and robotics has led to an unprecedented explosion of data, offering transformative opportunities for process optimization, product quality enhancement, predictive maintenance, and customisation. However, realizing these benefits requires effective data collection, storage, and processing, which necessitates robust and adaptable IT infrastructures. This white paper provides a comprehensive overview of four popular data infrastructure paradigms: data lakes, data fabrics, data meshes, and data spaces. Each of these paradigms have their unique focus points and application domains. Metadata serves as a crucial component, enhancing the findability, accessibility, interoperability, and reusability of data. The paper also explores critical building blocks of modern data infrastructures within manufacturing environments, such as OPC UA, brokers, and data catalogues, highlighting their role in enabling effective data sharing, management, and governance.