DATA EXCHANGE LAYER
Your Data, Your Way, Your Control.
The Data Exchange Layer enables controlled and secured data exchange between different applications on the controller. It serves as a central component that enables low-latency and deterministic communication on the one hand, with flexible and standardized data exchange on the other.
The term "Data Exchange Layer" (D.E.L.) refers to the overarching technology or framework responsible for orchestrating and optimizing the data exchange process between real-time and non-real-time applications within the Linux-based containerized applications.
In SALZ Automation System, D.E.L. is responsible for the following:
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Data Routing: D.E.L. routes data between different real-time and non-real-time applications. It manages the flow of data between containers and ensures that data reaches the right destination.
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Data Access: D.E.L. enables easy data access, as the data is made accessible in the non-real-time sector by an integrated OPC-UA server. Security is established by an integrated certificate management.
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Security and Access Control: D.E.L. includes security measures and access controls, both on the real-time and non-real-time side. This ensures that the user is in control of the data flow at all times.
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Synchronization: D.E.L. plays a critical role in maintaining data synchronization between real-time and non-real-time data pools, ensuring that both sets of data remain up-to-date and consistent.
Working of Data Exchange Layer
The operations of D.E.L. critically used shared memory to provide a high-performance and low-latency means of inter-process communication, especially when multiple processes need to exchange data quickly. Shared memory is highly efficient because it doesn't involve the serialization and deserialization of data, as is common with other IPC(Intra-Process Communication) mechanisms like sockets or message queues. D.E.L. is it well-suited for real-time and performance-critical applications as th processes can directly access shared memory and exchange permitted data.
D.E.L. ensure data consistency and prevent data corruption by data synchronization. The middleware framework of D.E.L. provides a set of services and tools for inter-process communication in real-time systems. It is designed to work in conjunction with shared memory and other IPC (Intra-Process Communication) mechanisms to provide efficient and reliable communication.
While OPC UA defines a client-server model with a standardized information model and address space, ensuring that data and methods are organized and accessible for non-real time applications, it is connected to the shared-memory part of D.E.L. for accessing the data from various other real-time applications.
Both the real-time and non-real time memory accesses are mirrored that makes this whole process high performance and dealy in data transfer is as short as 5 µs.
Main features and benefits
- Layered architecture removes complexities in communication and reduces the delay in data transfer.
- OPC UA is widely known and supports major applications hence widening the spectrum of D.E.L. control.
- D.E.L. employs a publish-subscribe communication model, where publishers (data producers) push data into the system, and subscribers (data consumers) receive the data hence the data can be broadcasted to multiple consumers.
- D.E.L. is well-suited for complex applications where different components may have distinct runtime characteristics.
- D.E.L. enables low-latency communication between real-time and non-real time apps where data exchange and synchronization are paramount.
- D.E.L. likely prioritizes interoperability. It accommodates diverse runtime systems, whether they are real-time, non-real-time, or a combination of both.
- D.E.L. employs encryption, authentication, and authorization. Data exchanged between real-time and non-real time application is encrypted to protect it from unauthorized access.
- D.E.L. is scalable. Hence, can be integrated with different modules and components, ensuring that it can handle the communication requirements of a large and intricate system.