Networking firm Belden has launched an industrial edge solution to simplify industrial hybrid networks and operational technology integration with edge and cloud systems.

The Belden Horizon industrial edge platform software as a service (SaaS) technology that more efficient management of industrial edge devices, with “edge orchestration” capabilities. Edge orchestration allows users to deploy and manage edge applications across one device or many devices at the same time locally or remotely.

The platform provides Secure Remote Access (SRA) and Persistent Data Network (PDN) as well as features such as edge orchestration, data monitoring, and anomaly detection using short interval data.

“When people thought of Belden in the past, they thought of switches and cable, but we’ve moved beyond that,” said Jeremy Friedmar, senior product manager, Edge solutions at Belden. “Customers get full-fledged IT/OT solutions from Belden, solutions that will continue to expand into new applications as we learn more and advance the technology. We are excited to provide this additional enabling technology as part of our broader Edge initiative to get operations people the tools they need where they need them. Belden Horizon and edge hardware products like our forthcoming Hirschmann OpEdge-8D are ruggedised, industrial-grade equipment that can withstand harsh operational environments, making them better than the available IT solutions.”

“Our secure remote access (SRA) with vLOTO is the best in the business,” said Keith Blodorn, business director at ProSoft Technology, a Belden brand. “It works at the edge to allow direct access tunnels to secure networks of remote equipment at the operational level, minimising machine and process downtime and reducing support costs. It simultaneously ensures seamless visibility for the organisation’s IT people and higher-level management on the overall network, efficiently meeting both OT and IT needs.”

“The trend in industrial markets towards digitisation is real. Organisations have realised the business value of the insights that they can glean from their operational data and are eager to implement solutions enabling its collection, visualisation, and analysis,” Friedmar said. “Belden’s Edge solutions provide the critical infrastructure for the efficient integration of local operational data into a variety of applications that will produce insights that ultimately improve efficiency, maximise uptime, and enable continuous process improvement.”