Edge-to-cloud pipeline monitoring with MQTT Sparkplug B across 300+ remote stations.
Industry: Oil & Gag Midstream | Edge Connectivity
Quick Facts
| Attribute | Value |
|---|---|
| Customer | Major midstream pipeline operator |
| Scale | 300+ remote sites, 500,000+ data points |
| Points per Site | ~1,500 |
| Update Rate | 10 seconds |
| Architecture | EdgeConnect on router-class Linux, MQTT Sparkplug B, 4-node broker HA |
| Status | In production, phased deployment |
The Challenge
Challenge: Operate and observe hundreds of distributed midstream sites with PLCs and intermittent, bandwidth-limited links—while keeping on-site autonomy and ensuring a unified, secure, and scalable publish/subscribe model for corporate operations, analytics, and alarms.
Specific pain points:
- Multiprotocol collection (ControlLogix + DF1) into a single publish model without custom middleware
- Reliable delivery over satellite with high latency/jitter and strict bandwidth budgets
- Broker high-availability and end-to-end observability at scale (350 sites, 500k+ tags)
- Simple, repeatable deployment on router-class Linux hardware with unattended recovery
Impact: Without a standardized, resilient gateway + MQTT pattern, sites face delayed event visibility, manual correlation, higher truck-rolls, and longer MTTR during incidents.
Example: "Prior to MQTT + EdgeConnect, engineers had to manually pull logs from PLCs after outages; post-event diagnostics stretched MTTR and risked SLA breaches."
The Solution
Architecture
| Tier | Component | Capabilities |
|---|---|---|
| Field | ControlLogix (CIP), DF1 devices | Signals and controls |
| Edge (Site) | EdgeConnect on Linux (Cisco routers) | Collection, buffer, publish; AutoStart; Watchdog; local logging |
| Transport | Satellite / WAN | Telemetry backhaul with store-and-forward |
| Brokers | MQTT brokers (HA, N=4) | Pub/Sub backbone; persistent sessions; retained health topics |
| Consumers | SCADA / Historian / Analytics | Enterprise visibility and actions |
Scale
| Component | Specification | Quantity |
|---|---|---|
| Edge Nodes | EdgeConnect in Cisco routers | 300+ |
| Protocols | ControlLogix and DF1 | Multiple |
| Data Points | 1,500 per site | 500,000 total |
| Update Rate | 10 seconds | Optimized |
| Transport | MQTT Sparkplug B | 4 brokers |
| Redundancy | 1 redundant server + 3 redundant MQTT Brokers | All sites |
Network Architecture
- Segmented per-site VLANs; secure egress to broker endpoints only
- Backpressure control: publish rate limiting, payload compression, delta/exception reporting
- Multi-endpoint broker list with exponential backoff and jitter to avoid thundering herd
Redundancy & Failover
Brokers:
- 4-node HA cluster with client failover and session persistence
Edge:
- Store-and-forward with disk queues
- Automatic reconnect and replay
- Service watchdog and OS autostart
Links:
- Multi-endpoint broker list
- Exponential backoff with jitter
Protocols & Equipment
| Category | Details |
|---|---|
| Drivers/Interfaces | ControlLogix (CIP/EtherNet/IP), DF1 (serial), TCP/IP |
| Messaging | MQTT, MQTT Sparkplug B (birth/death, metrics, model) |
| Data Model | Sparkplug namespaces per site/asset; Group ID, Node ID, Device ID |
Observability & Health
- Edge and broker watchdogs
- Heartbeats (LWT/BIRTH), latency and backlog metrics per site
- Topic-level delivery KPIs
Key Enablers
FrameworX capabilities that made this solution possible:
| Capability | Application |
|---|---|
| Multiprotocol edge collection | ControlLogix + DF1 with unified MQTT/Sparkplug output |
| Router-grade Linux runtime | Low footprint deployment close to PLCs on Cisco hardware |
| Store-and-Forward | Unattended resilience over satellite; disk queues for network outages |
| AutoStart + Watchdog | Automatic recovery without manual intervention |
| Broker HA (N=4) | Access governance to prevent network overflow and ensure continuity |
| Real-time monitoring | Alarms on heartbeat loss, queue growth, or reconnect storms |
Strategic Insights
Edge Intelligence vs. Middleware
Traditional approaches require expensive middleware to aggregate multiprotocol data. EdgeConnect standardizes collection at the source, publishing unified Sparkplug B regardless of field protocol—eliminating middleware complexity and cost.
Satellite-Ready Architecture
High-latency, bandwidth-constrained links require purpose-built resilience. Store-and-forward with disk queues, rate limiting, and payload batching ensures reliable delivery without overwhelming constrained links.
Why it's non-trivial elsewhere:
The combination of CIP + DF1 ingestion, Sparkplug governance at scale, true edge resilience over high-latency links, and 4-node broker HA across 350 sites typically requires significant custom engineering; EdgeConnect standardizes it.
Build This Architecture
| Item | Details |
|---|---|
| Deployment Time (Phase 1) | 8-12 weeks for 50 sites |
| Current Stage | 300+ sites |
| Required Products | EdgeConnect ($750/site), Enterprise Unlimited ($11,900), DataHub Station ($2,000 × 6) |
| Total Architecture Cost | ~$250,000 for complete 300-site system |
The Results
- Reduced MTTR by 70% — Eliminated manual log collection from PLCs post-outage through real-time MQTT telemetry, enabling immediate incident visibility and faster root cause analysis
- Achieved 99.5% uptime across 350 sites — 4-node broker HA cluster with store-and-forward edge resilience maintained continuous operations despite satellite link interruptions and bandwidth constraints
- Standardized deployment at scale — Single EdgeConnect solution replaced custom middleware across all sites, reducing deployment complexity and enabling consistent 500k+ tag collection from mixed ControlLogix/DF1 environments
- Enhanced operational visibility — Real-time publish/subscribe model with Sparkplug B provided enterprise-wide monitoring and analytics capabilities, replacing reactive maintenance with proactive incident management
This case demonstrates large-scale edge-to-cloud architecture for remote pipeline monitoring with MQTT Sparkplug B, satellite-resilient connectivity, and standardized deployment across hundreds of sites.