The Manufacturing Connect Edge operating system can be deployed in several ways.

The most common installation scenarios are:

To determine the best approach for installation, you must first establish how Manufacturing Connect Edge is to be used.

If Manufacturing Connect Edge is used to collect data on an asset or line base, the most common form of deployment is an installation on a physical device such as an IPC (Industrial PC) device.

The IPC is installed close to the asset or line, often within the same cabinet as the data source, such as a PLC (Programmable Logic Controller), CNC (Computer Numerical Control), robotic system, or DCS (Distributed Control System).

It is connected through one of its network cards to the VLAN of the asset or line. The second network card connects the device to the plant OT (Operational Technology) network and allows for access using the Web UI (User Interface).

If Manufacturing Connect Edge is used to collect data for a section or plant level that includes several lines or assets, the choice may be to deploy it as a virtual system.

This is usually done using managed virtual environments such as VMWare ESXi. The virtual machine runs inside the virtualized environment and connects to the data sources through the plant OT network.

This requires that routing allows the VM to reach every data source located within isolated VLANs.

The installation as virtual machine using VirtualBox is another option. This is usually a development system. For example, in a PoV (proof of value) project, or where many stakeholders test the system and it is not feasible to provide a physical device to everyone.

It is also possible to use a mixed installation. This combines the deployment of physical devices on an asset or line basis and the deployment of a virtualized system as a consolidation layer

See Verified VM Versions and Validated Gateway Devices for more information.