Architectural viewpoints

Many disciplines and viewpoints need to be considered in architecting an IIoT solution, and the various stakeholders from each viewpoint can have intertwining concerns spanning the lifetime of the system.

Let's discuss the following typical viewpoints and how they interact with each other:

  • Business viewpoint
  • Usage viewpoint
  • Functional viewpoint
  • Implementation viewpoint

The business viewpoint maps business strategy to capabilities and identifies opportunities to achieve additional value thru IIoT. The business viewpoint identifies the capabilities that become the driver for the usage viewpoint, which deals with how the system is used. The usage viewpoint guides the life cycle of the project, including design, development, implementation, deployment, and the sustaining engineering. The functional viewpoint defines what the system does, and breaks it down into its functional components. Finally, the implementation viewpoint determines and defines the technologies and components needed to implement the usage and functional viewpoints. These viewpoints form Figure 2.2: Architecture viewpoint hierarchy:

Figure 2.2: Architecture viewpoint hierarchy

In architecting an IIoT system, it is vital to consider security at every level and in every component, and how they interact. Each viewpoint has its unique security concerns, which are introduced next.