Architecture of Hybrid Cloud for Manufacturing Enterprise

T. Xiao, L. Zhang, and S. Ma (Eds.): ICSC 2012, Part I, CCIS 326, pp. 365–372, 2012.

? Springer-Verlag Berlin Heidelberg 2012

Architecture of Hybrid Cloud for Manufacturing

Enterprise

Jingeng Mai 1,2, Lin Zhang 1,2, Fei Tao 1,2, and Lei Ren 1,2

1

School of Automation Science and Electrical Engineering,

Beihang University, Beijing, 100191, P.R. China 2 Engineering Research Center of Complex Product AdvancedManufacturing Systems,

Ministry of Education, Beihang University, Beijing, 100191, P.R. China Abstract. Cloud manufacturing (CMfg) provides a high-efficiency model to realize manufacturing resources sharing and on-demand using. Though private cloud service platform which has advantages of safety and efficiency is applicable for group enterprise, there is limit of network isolated. In order to increase profits and reduce costs simultaneously, some manufacturing enterprises will combine their private cloud service platforms with public cloud platform to release excess manufacturing resources and abilitiesand obtain more services. After analyzing the architecture of cloud manufacturing service platform, a hybrid cloud infrastructure applied for manufacturing enterprises is proposed, and some functional features of the hybrid cloud platform are described. Furthermore, a mechanism for private cloud combining with public cloud is presented. Finally, some challenges that enterprise might face while operating in hybrid cloud environment are discussed.

Keywords: Cloud manufacturing(CMfg), hybrid cloud, service platform, combination mechanism, linking platform, service confusion.

1 Introduction

With the development of digitization and informatizationtechnologies in the whole lifecycle manufacturing activities, application integration systems[1] with main lines of supply chain management and product management are applied for manufacturing enterprises. Recently, a service-oriented and knowledge based new manufacturing paradigm called Cloud Manufacturing (CMfg)[2-9]is put forward, and promote integration of various information, resource and abilities into a high-efficiency, low consumption and cross-time-space pattern. Using CMfg service platform[3,12,21], manufacturing enterprises can make data, process, equipments and other resources existing in heterogeneous system or platform shared and reusable for all users. And with in-depth research in some key technologies, such as physical resource intelligent perception[5], virtualization[6] and cloud service[7,8],CMfg service platform is applied gradually both in group enterprises and small and medium-sized enterprises (SME) [9].

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SME which is numerous and widely distributed generally connects to public cloud in which distributed manufacturing resources can be virtually described, encapsulated, deployed and centrally stored[10]. Public cloud focuses on integrating resources and capabilities among different enterprises. It has benefits of easy and inexpensive set-up, because services can be obtained on a pay-per-usage model. But it still has risk of privacy leakiness.

Group enterprise which owning comprehensive physical resources and adequate processing capacities and relying more on internal service collaboration, generally builds private cloud for efficient and safe inter-sharing [11]. However, it is a closed system for resources and capabilities sharing, and enterprise can’t obtain some low-cost services outside. Meanwhile, some excess resources in private cloud will be idle and waste, because they can’t be available for external users.

According smiling curve theory [14], they are the high points in R&D (research and development) and marketing for manufacturing enterprise’s value-adding. Though group enterprise owns many departments and subordinate enterprises, it’s not enough by sharing resources internal to realize sustainable growth. It’s essential to obtain external advantaged resources to promote R&D abilities and reduce costs, and expand market space sustainable. So it’s necessary to make enterprise’s private cloud combine with other clouds, and that’s the mode of hybrid cloud [15-19] in which resources can be shared crossing different clouds.

After analyzing the architecture and functional features of cloud manufacturing service platform, a hybrid cloud infrastructure applied in manufacturing enterprise is proposed, and a mechanism for private cloud combining with public cloud is presented. Finally, some challenges that enterprise might face while operating in hybrid cloud environment are discussed.

2Review of Private CMfg Service Platform

Li and Zhang et al.[2,11] studied deeply in the architecture of CMfg, and pointed out that the CMfg service platform primarily consists of five layers, including resource

Fig. 1. Structure diagram of private CMfg service platform for manufacturing enterprise

Architecture of Hybrid Cloud for Manufacturing Enterprise 367 layer, perception layer, service layer, middleware layer and application layer[3,12].The core components are resource, service, knowledge and application, as shown in Fig.1.

?Resource as the foundation

Varies manufacturing resources such as computer and software, are transformed tovirtual resources, such as virtual machine, soft component, model, data, and document.Physicalmanufacturing resources such as drilling machine and milling machine are enabledto be connected intothe networkby using thetechnologies such as RFID andInternet of Things (IoTs), and described as virtual resource calendar[6]. Material, logistics and human resources also can be mappedinto data.

?Service as the interface

Resources and capabilities are encapsulated as services and deployed in CMfg service platform in which services can be discovered and searched using service management tools. Theinterface of services is standardized, so that users can easily invoke services. Meanwhileprocessing equipmentscan be the monitored and operated through these services interface.

?Application as the terminal

In CMfg service platform, there are various applications, such as design, simulation, processing, logistics, business and etc., whose can meet the diverse needs of users.Applications are integrated from varieties of services,and usuallycan be operated through webportaland ubiquitous interaction technologies[13], so that they can be easilyaccessed by using mobile terminals.

?Knowledge as the core

Knowledgebase inmanufacturing domainis constituted of manufacturing knowledge ontology and its formal description [7]. It provides core intelligentsupport for resource virtualization, service management and application integration with the form of data fusion algorithm, fault diagnosis method, and intelligent expert system.

3Hybrid Cloud Architectures for Manufacturing Enterprise

3.1Functional Structure

After group enterprises setting up private cloud platforms in their own cloud infrastructures, it is hard to combine their private cloud platforms together because of the respective differences in norms and standards and different privacy requirements. It is a convenient choice to combine private cloud with public cloud which is relatively open.

Private cloud connects physically to external public cloud through high-speed networks and efficient firewall infrastructure (as shown in Fig.2), and joints

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functionally through a linking platform (as shown in Fig.3) so as to achieve interoperability management of resources, services, applications and knowledge. The functional features of the hybrid cloud for manufacturing enterprise are summarized as follows:

Fig. 2. Structure of hybrid cloud platform for manufacturing enterprise

1.When internal (private) users access to the private CMfg service platform, the

function and usage of application and interface of service should be unchanged.

It’s still handled in private cloud for resource access and perception, real-time data processing and virtualization. In a word,the private cloud platform should maintain its original structure.

2.Internalusers can access tothe public cloud platform, and call for public cloud

services as thesame as private cloud services.

3.When external(public) usersaccess to private cloud platform, they can obtain

resources, services and applications by permission.

3.2Combination Mechanism

In order to achieve interoperability in hybrid cloud, acombine mechanism called linking platformis proposed. The linking platform consists of four parts, including resourcesharing management, serviceconfusion management, applicationintegration management and knowledgegathering management. It is a management component for private cloud searching, analyzing and integrating publicservices, deploying its own services, and also searching and extracting multi-domain knowledge existing in public clouds.

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Fig. 3. Structure of linking platform

3.2.1 Resource-Sharing

Management

Resource access control module

It is a management mechanism for external user to access internal resource and realizing resources optimal allocation [20], including authentication, resource monitoring, sharing-level evaluation. Sharing-level evaluation refers to assign different levels to resources according classification of internal resources and safety consideration. The levels can be dynamically adjusted based on resource usage and other monitoring information, so as to achieve resource allocationoptimization.

Data migration module

Supported by transmission service interface, structured data (database, etc.) and unstructured data (files, images, etc.) can transmit between differentdata centers.

Management

3.2.2 Service-Confusion

Interface conversion module

The essential aim of private cloud linking to public cloud is to call more public services. Firstly, cloud services which have been registered in some public UDDIs (Universal Description, Discovery and Integrations) are found through service search engine in this module. After analyzing services descriptionwith semantic method, it classifies them and extracts some useful information, e.g. basic information,interface information and others. Then, in order to be integrated in private applications, public services are converted referencing to private services interfaces.

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Fig. 4. Interface conversion

Service deployment module

This module is designed to deploy (e.g. register in UDDI) private cloud services in

public cloud.

Service access control module

If users request for accessing services, they will be authorized with certain license mechanism. In order to avoid network congestion and services confliction, service monitoring is needed for service flow adjustment, and service scheduling is the key to realize intelligent QoS (quantity of service) management by using intelligent algorithms.

Fig. 5. Service access control

Management

3.2.3 Application-Integration

Cross-cloud integration

Services provided by public cloud can be integrated into the private cloud applications.

Cross-cloud access

Users in one cloud can access applications running in other cloud platforms, and be enabled to use any Internet terminal to access application services no whether where.

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Cross-cloud transfer

Using transmission and storage services interface and supported by certain license mechanism, applications can transfercross-cloud for deployment and running. And some applications can transferfrom cloud to cloud terminal.

3.2.4 Knowledge-Gathering

Management

In hybrid cloud environment, there isvast amountsknowledge in the form of data, algorithms, models, ontology, semantic description and domain knowledgebase. It is essential to search and extract the knowledge distributedin public cloud, becauseit’s usual heterogeneous, complex,interdisciplinary and multi-domain. And then, available knowledge should be classified and clustered, and stored in the local knowledgebase.

4Challenges in Hybrid Cloud

First,it is the challenge oftechnology support, e.g. safety and security. Though, the sharing and reusing of resources are improved, it brings a number of security challengescaused by the structure of enterprise’s network changed from closed to semi-open, such as the security of infrastructure (e.g. network, data center), thesecurity of cloud service platform and theaccess security of virtual resources, services and applications.

Furthermore,it is the challenge of business operation model change. In a hybrid cloud, in order to reduce operating costs, manufacturing enterprises will have to adjusttheir organizationstructure and business processes.For example, some departments may be reduced, andsome businessesmay be replaced byrenting services in public cloud. At the same time, business risk will increase, because it’s lacking of guaranteeinstability and availabilityby renting public cloud services. So, it is a high-demand for service collaboration management in manufacturingprocess.

5Conclusions

Though, it’s convenient formanufacturing enterprise to buildprivate cloud service platforms for safe and efficientsharingof internal resources, it’s essential to combine private cloud with public cloud for the purpose ofR&D abilities improvement, costsreduction and market space expansion.In this paper,a hybrid cloud infrastructure applied in manufacturing enterprise is proposed, and some functional features of the hybrid cloud platform are described. Furthermore, a mechanism for private cloud linking to public cloud is presented.

Acknowledgements. This work was financially supported by the 863 Program project in China (No.2011AA040501), the National Science Foundation of China(No. 61103096), and the Fundamental Research Funds for the Central Universities in China.

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