Model-Based Systems Engineering for the Agile Life-Cycle Management of IIoT Based on DevOps

Abstract

The domain of Industrial Internet of Things (IIoT) contains a vast variety of standards, protocols, tool suites, coding languages, etc. The Reference Architecture Model Industry (RAMI) 4.0 provides an abstraction of the different views involved in designing IIoT systems. However, the life-cycle model of the reference architecture suggests a progression from the development into production. This progression does not conform well with the best practices of software engineering, e.g., DevOps, where runtime data is given back to the design-time. In this paper, we suggest an agile life-cycle management of the IIoT systems, and propose an approach of Model-Based Systems Engineering (MBSE) based on the System Modeling Language (SysML) 2.0. We define metadata in the domain of event-driven IIoT systems. Architects can create tagged model instances, which are automatically validated against system requirements. The validated models are passed to an artifact generator to create code, test cases, or documentation. Our approach assists in the development and commissioning of system assets. We feed the runtime data to design-time to improve the quality of service.