Skip to main content

Architecture Recommendations

In the age of Industry 4.0 and the associated exponential increase in data volumes, the scalability of IT systems is one of the greatest challenges of industrialization. The OPC Router is the central platform for enabling and optimizing communication between different industrial systems. This chapter is dedicated to architecture recommendations for using the OPC Router. The goal is to be able to operate both small and large, complex systems efficiently and reliably.

Objectives and Scope​

This chapter aims to provide clear and structured guidance on implementing and scaling the OPC Router in companies of different sizes. It is intended to help both IT administrators and decision-makers in companies make informed decisions about the architecture of their systems.

The pages in this chapter​

The recommendations are organized along two axes: by company size—ranging from cost-effective single installations to scalable mid-market systems to high-availability enterprise solutions—and by topology, i.e., centralized, decentralized, or on edge devices.

  • Fundamentals of Scaling—configuration storage and project database, vertical and horizontal scaling, and separation of concerns as the foundation for all subsequent chapters.
  • Architecture for Small Solutions—for small businesses that want to start cost-effectively and grow with their needs: minimum requirements, sample architecture, optional redundancy, and backup.
  • Architecture for Medium-Sized Solutions—for growing data volumes and more complex production processes: expanded hardware requirements, separation of concerns, horizontal scaling.
  • Architecture for enterprise solutions—for high availability within the corporate group: redundancy options, virtualization, configuration versioning, test and development systems, monitoring.
  • Edge device architecture—for operation close to the machine using Docker, Portainer, Siemens Industrial Edge, and Azure IoT Edge.

In addition, this branch includes best practices—guidelines for engineering that prevent data loss and improve system performance—as well as performance analysis with four test series, including setup, hardware, and measured throughputs, collected using older product versions. The terms and flows for each OAuth 2.0 login are covered under OAuth 2.0 – Fundamentals.