Glossary · System coordination, integration and orchestration
Edge gateway
Also known as: IIoT gateway, industrial edge gateway
German: Edge-Gateway
In industrial IoT, an edge gateway is a device or software runtime at the boundary between field level and higher-level networks that collects data from machines and field devices, converts protocols, preprocesses data and forwards it to plant, enterprise or cloud systems.
- System integration
- OT security
In one sentence
An edge gateway sits between machines and higher-level networks, collecting data, converting protocols and forwarding it to plant or cloud systems.
Example
An edge gateway reads PROFINET data from a press and OPC UA data from a robot, converts both into MQTT messages and sends them to the plant's event broker.
How it applies
- Engineering: Edge gateways decouple machines from IT systems: machines keep their field protocols, and higher levels get normalized data. Define which data the gateway may write back to machines, if any.
- Security: A gateway connects security zones and is itself an attack surface. Treat it as part of a Conduit in the zone model, harden it, patch it and restrict its connections. Write access to controllers needs particular care.
- Documentation: Document data points, protocols, update rates and buffering behavior when connections fail. Service documentation should say how to replace a gateway and restore its configuration.
Edge gateway vs. API gateway
An edge gateway connects the shop floor with higher-level systems. An API gateway manages requests to software services. Both mediate access, at different layers.