Belden launches expanded industrial edge solution

Belden is launching Belden Horizon industrial edge solution, a powerful new platform that meets the fast-growing need for a simpler, seamless, secure, reliable way to connect operational systems at the edge while maintaining security and communication with the cloud.

The Belden Horizon console features the same Secure Remote Access (SRA) and Persistent Data Network (PDN) customers enjoyed with ProSoft Connect but adds potential for other functions, such as edge orchestration, data monitoring, and anomaly detection using short interval data.

The Belden Horizon console incorporates software as a service (SaaS) technology that, at its launch next month, will enable operations personnel to manage industrial edge devices more efficiently 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.

“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 for 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.”

When Belden Horizon launches, current ProSoft Connect customers will continue to receive seamless, best-in-class SRA and PDN on the new Belden Horizon platform with Belden’s superior security features; in addition, they can better onboard and manage edge devices and applications with edge orchestration. They can also look forward to the forthcoming data monitoring solutions, which will allow many data insights to be applied at the edge, before the data is even sent to the cloud, saving valuable processing time.

Belden Horizon also features Virtual Lockout-Tagout (vLOTO) security. This adds value to applications on the Belden Horizon console because vLOTO requires users to obtain permission prior to making a secure connection to a network.

“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.”

Belden’s industrial internet of things (IIoT) automation hardware portfolio, which includes products like the Hirschmann OpEdge-8D and the ProSoft ICX35 industrial cellular gateway, has Belden-inherent capabilities like networking, routing, and basic stateful firewall.

“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.”