Systems and Methods for Dynamically Maintained Redundancy and Load Balancing in Software Defined Control Systems for Industrial Process Plants

Patent metadata

Field	Value
Publication number	US-2022405130-A1
Application number	US-202117503047-A
Country	US
Kind code	A1
Filing date	Oct 15, 2021
Priority date	Jun 16, 2021
Publication date	Dec 22, 2022
Grant date	—

Abstract

A software defined distributed control system (SDCS) in a process plant includes an application layer that includes a plurality of containers instantiated in a data cluster. Each of the containers is an isolated execution environment executing within the local operating system of a respective computing node. The containers cooperate to facilitate execution of a control strategy in the SDCS, and includes a hyper converged infrastructure (HCI) operating across the data cluster, which HCI is configured to communicate with the application layer via an adapter service. The HCI includes software-defined (SD) compute resources, SD storage resources, SD networking resources, and an orchestrator service. The orchestrator service is programmed to configure a first container to include a service executing within the first container. It also assigns the first container to execute on an available hardware resource to control a plurality of field devices operating in the process plant.

First claim

What is claimed is:

1 . A software-defined distributed control system (SDCS) in an industrial process plant, the SDCS comprising:
an application layer comprising a plurality of containers instantiated in a data cluster, each of the plurality of containers being an isolated execution environment executing within the local operating system of a respective computing node of the data cluster, the plurality of instantiated containers cooperating to facilitate execution of a control strategy in the SDCS; a hyper converged infrastructure operating across the data cluster, the hyper converged infrastructure configured to communicate with the application layer via an adapter service, the hyper converged infrastructure comprising:
software-defined compute resources;
software-defined storage resources;
software-defined networking resources; and
an orchestrator service configured to:
configure a first container of the plurality of containers to include a service executing within the first container; and
assign the configured first container to execute on an available hardware resource of a plurality of hardware resources to thereby control a plurality of process control field devices operating in the industrial process plant to produce a product from input materials.

2 . An SDCS according to claim 1 , wherein configuring a first container to include a service executing within the first container comprises configuring the first container to execute a controller service configured to receive data from the plurality of process control field devices, to determine from the received data one or more control outputs, and to send the one or more control outputs to one or more of the plurality of field devices.

3 . An SDCS according to claim 1 , wherein configuring a first container to include a service executing within the container comprises configuring the first container to execute an input/output (I/O) server service.

4 . An SDCS according to claim 1 , wherein configuring a first container to include a service executing within the first container comprises configuring the first container to execute an historian service.

5 . An SDCS according to claim 1 , wherein configuring a first container to include a service executing within the first container comprises configuring the first container to execute a distributed alarm subsystem service.

6 . An SDCS according to claim 1 , wherein configuring a first container to include a service executing within the first container comprises configuring the first container to execute a diagnostic subsystem service.

7 . An SDCS according to claim 1 , wherein assigning the configured first container to execute on an available hardware resource comprises assigning the configured first container to execute on a specific power supply.

8 . An SDCS according to claim 1 , wherein assigning the configured container to execute on an available hardware resource comprises assigning the configured first container to execute on a specific data cluster.

9 . An SDCS according to claim 1 , wherein assigning the configured first container to execute on an available hardware resource comprises assigning the configured first container to execute on a specific data cluster.

10 . An SDCS according to claim 1 , wherein assigning the configured container to execute on an available hardware resource comprises assigning the configured first container to execute on a specific server of a plurality of servers.

11 . An SDCS according to claim 1 , wherein assigning the configured first container to execute on an available hardware resource comprises assigning the configured first container to execute on a specific processor.

12 . An SDCS according to claim 1 , wherein assigning the configured first container to execute on an available hardware resource comprises assigning the configured first container to execute on a specific processor core.

13 . An SDCS according to claim 1 , wherein assigning the configured first container to execute on an available hardware resource comprises assigning the configured first container to execute using a specific memory device.

14 . An SDCS according to claim 1 , wherein assigning the configured first container to execute on an available hardware resource comprises assigning the configured first container to execute using a specific memory resource.

15 . An SDCS according to claim 1 , wherein the orchestrator service is further figured to dynamically add or remove hardware resources.

16 . An SDCS according to claim 15 , wherein dynamically adding or removing hardware resources comprises adding a physical server to, or removing a physical server from, the data cluster.

17 . An SDCS according to claim 1 , wherein assigning the configured first container to execute on an available hardware resource comprises selecting the available hardware resource according to a metric related to the available hardware resource.

18 . An SDCS according to claim 17 , wherein the metric is processing bandwidth, network bandwidth, memory resources, or communication latency between the available hardware resource and another component.

19 . An SDCS according to claim 1 , wherein assigning the configured first container to execute on an available hardware resource comprising moving the configured first container from executing on a current hardware resource to executing on the available hardware resource according to a metric related to the current hardware resource, the available hardware resource, or a comparison between the metrics of the current and available hardware resources.

20 . An SDCS according to claim 19 , wherein the metric is processing bandwidth, network bandwidth, memory resources, or communication latency between the available hardware resource and another component.

21 . An SDCS according to claim 1 , wherein the orchestrator service is further configured to:
configure one or more redundant containers to include the service executing within each of the one or more redundant containers; assign each of the one or more redundant containers to execute on respective available hardware resources of the plurality of hardware resources.

22 . An SDCS according to claim 21 , wherein the orchestrator service is further configured to assign the first container as an active container, outputs of the service executing within the active container being driving outputs.

23 . An SDCS according to claim 21 , wherein the orchestrator service is further configured to assign one of the one or more redundant containers as an active container, such that the first container becomes redundant, wherein outputs of the service executing within the active container are driving outputs.

24 . An SDCS according to claim 21 , wherein the orchestrator service is further configured to:
maintain a list of redundant containers; and update the list of redundant containers as a new active container is assigned.

25 . An SDCS according to claim 21 , wherein assigning each of the one or more redundant containers to execute on respective available hardware resources comprises selecting the respective available hardware resources such that each of the one or more redundant containers creates fault tolerance in at least one aspect.

26 . An SDCS according to claim 25 , wherein creating fault tolerance in at least one aspect comprises creating processor diversity amo

Assignees

• Fisher Rosemount Systems Inc

Inventors

• Amaro Jr Anthony
• Nixon Mark J

Classifications

• G05B19/41835

  characterised by program execution · CPC title

• G05B2219/31449

  Monitor workflow, to optimize business, industrial processes · CPC title

• G06F9/50 Primary

  Allocation of resources, e.g. of the central processing unit [CPU] · CPC title

• G05B19/4185 Primary

  characterised by the network communication · CPC title

• G05B2219/33139

  Design of industrial communication system with expert system · CPC title