< PreviousWhy it is today’s catalyst for business continuity and growth Networking automation The pandemic has seen a rapid acceleration in the digital transformation plans of the most forward-looking businesses. A 2021 survey by Equinix found that 47% of IT decision-makers globally reported they had accelerated digital transformation plans because of the pandemic, while 58% said they want to invest in technology to make them more agile in the post-Covid era. Drivers of a new approach The pandemic has exacerbated the worldwide skills shortage of trained, qualified and experienced IT people. Internal IT teams have often been hit hard by a shortage of staff, also in terms of staff being off work - either ill or self-isolating, for example, or not being able to travel. During the pandemic, engineers have been unable to visit sites, whether branch offices, warehousing depots or co-location facilities. All of this has been instrumental in driving the march to digitalisation and remote automation. Those businesses that have done well through the lockdowns: from content delivery businesses to logistics firms; and from video streaming organisations to gaming companies, have been successful because of the growth in demand for their services. However, their ongoing success has also depended on how adept they have been at overcoming the technology challenges Covid-19 raised and taking advantage of the opportunities new technology has delivered. Alan Stewart-Brown VP EMEA Opengear networking automation www.networkseuropemagazine.com 30mation networking automation www.networkseuropemagazine.com 31Added to this there are global shortages of silicon which have increased the lead time for a lot of equipment. Part of this is being driven by car manufacturers who are using increasingly more central processing units (CPUs) and silicon components than before. The end result is once again a prompt to move away from a physically maintained network infrastructure and move instead to automation, virtualisation and secure remote support. These challenges have acted as motivation but there are also opportunities to take advantage of here. Organisations have recognised that in today’s networking world they need to be agile and have the right systems and infrastructure to scale up quickly. For many, this was made possible by the use of cloud- based services. As a result, they didn’t have to physically build their own data centre in order to scale, as they were able to leverage some of the hyperscale providers such as More companies today are realising that remote access and automation are no longer ‘nice to haves’, they are essential to future growth networking automation www.networkseuropemagazine.com 32Amazon AWS and Microsoft Azure amongst others. Added to this, having a virtualisation capability in place has allowed businesses to ‘spin out’ more machines or compute power without having to buy and deploy more physical hardware. More companies today are realising that remote access and automation are no longer ‘nice to haves’, they are essential to future growth. Remote access to critical infrastructure allows network engineers to do their jobs remotely and in real-time. The approach enables businesses to save money and respond faster, critically important in an environment where engineers can’t travel to the site. The move towards automation and virtualisation brings a host of other benefits. It allows remote provisioning of new equipment/services. Networking automation also makes processes repeatable and reliable thereby helping to remove human error. Coupled with this, "infrastructure as code" brings methods used in software engineering to help scale up automation of network/IT services. Large data centre deployments adopted this first, but we’re now seeing adoption in networking and in edge computing. One further benefit of automation is that following an IT failure incident, organisations can re-build quickly to get services up and running again. This reduces the time needed to fault find within a stack of virtualised appliances. Network automation also allows a faster reaction to the growth in demand. Scaling of traditional infrastructure is challenging as it requires multiple site visits and manual configuration/ testing. Automating the configuration, provisioning and testing has many benefits including enhanced speed, cost, accuracy and repeatability. Virtualisation benefits Virtual platforms (eg virtual firewall, virtualised SD-WAN) typically have full software stacks. It would take time to build or re-build these manually so they lend themselves to being automated, as maintenance of a full-stack can be a real challenge. Virtualisation can also bring benefits in an edge computing environment. Even as they move to the edge, many are looking to virtualise those sites. Some businesses have gone from having a physical firewall appliance to using a virtualised firewall. Some have moved from a physical software-defined networking (SDN) box to virtualised SDN appliance, running on a container in a white box server. Edge virtualisation entails doing all the things you might do in a large-scale virtualisation environment, just on a smaller scale and in more remote locations. However, because they are remote, there are typically no skilled IT people at these sites, so if there is an issue, the ability to access the network remotely and automate configuration, monitoring and remedial actions becomes critical. Also, while virtualisation is typically faster, it can also be more complex, so it is important in the current environment that instead of having to send a highly trained Cisco engineer to sign in, businesses can now create automation scripts that can be tested before deployment to ensure that they work and are robust and repeatable, therefore helping eliminate human error. It is about doing work at pace in a repeatable, scalable and robust way. Businesses can provision a new site without having to send an engineer for example. They can add in Smart Out-of-Band Management and implement it all in one platform, enabling them to do more automation work but also do it remotely, potentially even without primary or network connectivity. Looking ahead Growing numbers of businesses across multiple industry sectors are getting the message that having secure remote access and network automation that is independent of the production network, is not just a benefit to their business, it is rapidly becoming an essential element of it. Organisations will increasingly need these capabilities in place to compete effectively and succeed in the years to come. n Edge virtualisation entails doing all the things you might do in a large-scale virtualisation environment, just on a smaller scale and in more remote locations networking automation www.networkseuropemagazine.com 33IT INFRASTRUCTURE SOLUTIONS FOR INDUSTRY 4.0 Suitable network infrastructure systems that withstand adverse conditions for IIoT, smart factories, M2M and OT Often, machines and devices are affected by dust, dirt, temperature fluctuations, or vibrations in the manu- facturing site of an Industry. The same applies to the technology that is crucial for the use of IIOT (Industrial Internet of Things), IT (Information Technology), and OT (Operation Technology): network technology. This technology is necessary for the exchange of data and the power supply to the devices. In Industry 4.0, it must be protected from interference or specially designed for this purpose. Sturdy steel cabinets to protect the network technology Protection against dust and dirt: The wall-mounted ca- binets with protection class IP55 (art. no. DN-19 07U- I-OD) have been developed for industrial applications and are even suitable for outdoor use. With the appropriate accessories in 19“ format from DIGITUS®, the network distribution cabinet serves optimally as an EDP switch cabinet for industrial de- vices with DIN rail mounting, such as switches or PoE injectors. The upright network cabinets for indoor use (art. no. DN-19 24U-I-6/8-1) also have IP 55 protection class and protect the installed IT infrastructure from mois- ture ingress. This cabinet series is pre-destined for building control electronics for industrial plants or control and swit- ching systems in the automation field. Protection Class IP40 Protection Class IP55 Protection Class IP54 -40°/+85° Technical Features: advertorial content 34For maximum reliability in harsh conditions The flat industrial Gigabit Switch is recommended alternative during temperature fluctuations (art. no. DN-651126). The robust switch with Gigabit Ether- net speed and five ports can withstand temperatures from -40 to +85 °C. Thanks to an integrated termi- nal on the metal housing, it is DIN rail-compatible, in other words, suitable for DIN rail mounting. This de- velopment means that the switch can be placed on a standardized DIN rail in control boxes or controlled cabinets. In addition, the product is IP 40 certified and performs a redundant power supply that keeps connected devices operating in the event of a circuit failure. The Gigabit Media Converter (art. no. DN-652101) of- fers high reliability for industrial data transmission. It efficiently converts wire-based network signals into fast fiber-optic signals. Another advantage is that the converter bridges several kilometers of copper cabling so that the entire network cabling does not have to be changed. The wide range of the DIGITUS® brand enables the in- stallation of system solutions designed to meet high demands on the network infrastructure - all from a single source for over 50 years. IT infrastructure for harsh environments Discover the complete Industry 4.0 solution now: https://de.assmann.shop/en/industry-4-0 Under the DIGITUS brand, ASSMANN Electronic GmbH has developed a product series consisting of IT infras- tructure components that have been designed especially for use in the industry. In addition to Industry 4.0, DIGITUS also offers solutions for server, network, and peripheral infrastructure. These include copper and fiber-optic components for structured cabling as well as IT components for networked working environments such as graphics cards and docking stations. advertorial content 35However, this is not without its own challenges — challenges that require the latest computing technologies, explains Martin Frederiksen, Managing Director of rugged, embedded computing specialist, Recab UK. As with many things, CEA and greenhouses find their roots in ancient Rome. First century Roman Emperor Tiberius was documented to have demanded a fresh cucumber to eat every day, as prescribed by his royal physicians. To provide this all year round, the gardeners grew the crops in wheeled carts that could be left in the sun during the day and brought indoors at night, with translucent sheet-covered frames to permit light without exposing the fruit to the elements. Today’s greenhouses are decidedly more advanced, with complex heating, ventilation and cooling (HVAC) systems in place to ensure that temperatures and humidity are regulated and kept within controlled parameters. Embedded lighting controllers are often used to control LED lighting throughout evenings and nights to increase the yield of certain crops. These systems, alongside tightly controlled irrigation, fertiliser application and carbon dioxide enrichment, work together to maintain the optimum growth environment for plants and vegetation. Controlled environments It's therefore no surprise that greenhouse robots are growing in popularity. In such a carefully controlled environment, especially with carbon dioxide enriched airflow, the presence of human workers can disturb the balance. Greenhouse robots can manage crops with minimal environmental change. Similarly, plants need various amounts of space to grow properly which requires careful spacing of seeds. The space requirements change as the plant grows which leads to For millennia, humans have endeavoured to artificially control growing environments to boost crop and plant growth. Today, the most common form of controlled environment agriculture (CEA) is the greenhouse. However, efficiency and waste remain two of the largest challenges for greenhouses, leading to the development of robots to improve operations. Martin Frederiksen Managing Director Recab UK Tackling the challenges of greenhouse robotics greenhouse robotics www.networkseuropemagazine.com 36enges botics greenhouse robotics www.networkseuropemagazine.com 37either frequent manual adjustment or wasted space from the beginning. Greenhouse robots take this repetitive task and allow for much more adaptive spacing which leads to greater yields and reduced loss. However, greenhouse robots have been slow in development due to several operational challenges. Whereas an industrial robot in a manufacturing plant can handle items with more force, fruit and vegetables must be handled delicately to avoid damage. This requires sophisticated grippers equipped with sensors to ensure precise yet gentle handling of produce. Most importantly, embedded computing systems must be able to withstand high temperatures and humidity. greenhouse robotics www.networkseuropemagazine.com 38An equally great challenge for greenhouse robots comes from the computing technology needed. Not only do the robots require an embedded processor that can run increasingly complex AI algorithms, but they must also be compatible with and able to quickly process video input from the machine vision system. Most importantly of all, these embedded computing systems must be able to withstand high temperatures and humidity. In these regards, the embedded computing requirements of greenhouse robots are not too dissimilar from those of surveillance and reconnaissance units in security and defence. Therefore, the same latest rugged embedded technologies can offer significant benefits to greenhouse robot OEMs. For example, one option is to base a system on a Computer-on-Module (COM) that features an 11th generation Intel Core processor and check that its features are suited to graphics- intensive processing. If a module is working in a greenhouse environment, it’s also crucial to ensure that it can operate in extended temperatures up to +85ºC and in environments with up to 90% relative humidity. Another option that ensures high video processing capabilities is to use a general-purpose GPU (GPGPU). The challenge is in developing a GPGPU solution that meets the temperature and humidity requirements of a greenhouse, but this is a challenge that can be met by choosing a rugged system from a company with experience in developing systems for harsh environments. It may have taken some time for embedded technologies to arrive at this point, but they allow greenhouse robots to at last overcome the environmental conditions and ensure that healthy produce grows all year round. n greenhouse robotics www.networkseuropemagazine.com 39Next >