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Virtual PLC Real Benefits through Virtual Automation

A guest post by Mathias Albrecht | Translated by AI 6 min Reading Time

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Easy scalability, central management, efficient system maintenance: these are just some of the advantages of virtual systems. Such concepts were previously reserved for IT, but they can also virtualize tasks in OT. A project at Audi demonstrates that the technology is mature enough to take on demanding tasks in production.

To make manufacturing faster, more robust, and more flexible, production must be designed in a more IT-oriented manner. This also requires virtual controls.(Image: Audi AG)
To make manufacturing faster, more robust, and more flexible, production must be designed in a more IT-oriented manner. This also requires virtual controls.
(Image: Audi AG)

Virtual systems: these are virtual machines, i.e. computers that only exist as software and are hosted on a server, and virtualized applications that run independently of platform or operating system. One of the main drivers of this development is that virtual systems are significantly easier to scale and administer: once set up, a virtual machine can simply be duplicated. All systems are centrally managed and maintained, which simplifies updates. Existing resources can be used efficiently, for example by having multiple instances share hardware. IT security also benefits from the separation between hardware and machine or application. However, these advantages are contrasted by disadvantages: virtualization requires a hypervisor to be implemented as an abstraction layer and applications to be isolated in a sandbox. This results in performance disadvantages, which, however, are hardly noticeable given the computing power available today. So why not also use the advantages of virtualization in Operational Technology (OT)?

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