ABB and Red Hat have announced a global partnership to enable industries to scale rapidly and flexibly. Specifically, the partnership involves customers employing ABB’s process automation and industrial software to scale up leveraging Red Hat’s industry-leading enterprise platforms and application services built on Red Hat Enterprise Linux.

Leveraging Open Source for Autonomous Operation

“Together, we intend to streamline the transition from automated to autonomous operations. We plan to address current and future manufacturing needs using open-source technologies. As we work to break down barriers between IT and the plant level, we look to drive limitless innovation and mark a paradigm shift in operational technology based on open source,” said Matt Hicks, Red Hat’s President and CEO.

The collection, management and analysis of industrial plant data is critical to improve the efficiency of operations. Meanwhile, it also needs to address safety, security and productivity. This is consistent with ABB’s strategy for the evolution of process automation.

The partnership enables virtualization and containerization of automation software with Red Hat OpenShift. Eventually, it will provide advanced flexibility in hardware deployment, optimized according to application needs. It also provides efficient system orchestration, enabling real-time, data-based decision making at the edge and further processing in the cloud.

Red Hat OpenShift as Single Application Platform

Red Hat OpenShift is the industry’s leading enterprise Kubernetes platform, with Red Hat Enterprise Linux as its foundation. It provides ABB with a single consistent application platform, from small single node systems to scaled-out hyperconverged clusters at the industrial edge. Specifically, this platform simplifies development and management efforts for ABB’s customers.

Red Hat OpenShift increases the deployment flexibility and scalability of ABB Ability Edgenius, a comprehensive edge platform for industrial software applications, together with ABB Ability Genix Industrial Analytics and AI Suite, an enterprise-grade platform and applications suite that leverages industrial AI. Specifically, it drives industry 4.0 digital business outcomes for customers. ABB’s Edgenius and Genix can both be scaled seamlessly and securely across multiple deployments.

With this partnership, ABB will have access to capabilities like zero-touch provisioning or remote configuration of networks. This can increase manageability and consistency across plant environments.

Bernhard Eschermann, chief technology officer for ABB Process Automation said, “This exciting partnership with Red Hat demonstrates ABB’s commitment to meet customer needs by seeking alliances with other innovative market leaders. The alliance with Red Hat will see ABB continue helping our customers improve their operations as they navigate a rapidly evolving digital landscape. It will give them access to the tools they need to integrate plantwide IT and OT, while reducing risks and optimizing performance.”