Checklist

Edge Architecture & Data Pipeline Checklist

A practical checklist to design robust edge processing, buffering, and reliable OT-to-IT flows.

Interactive Tool

Edge Architecture & Data Pipeline Checklist

This interactive checklist helps you design, validate, and document an edge architecture that reliably delivers clean, timely data from machines to analytics and MES systems. Use it on-site to record configuration choices, run basic loss-and-recovery tests, and capture evidence so teams can compare designs and learn what works.

Keep answers concrete—note numbers, timeouts, test results, and dates. If you need a lightweight audit trail for later analysis, submit and repeat this checklist after changes or periodic tests.

Location, line, or cell where this edge architecture applies (use a stable identifier).
YYYY-MM-DD (or local date format).
Name and role of the person completing this checklist.
Choose the main transport between edge and cloud/MES.
Measured or expected average bandwidth between edge and upstream systems.
How long edge buffers persist data locally before overflow or drop. Pick the category and note exact sizing below.
Exact buffer retention target in hours. Use 0 if no buffering.
What happens when buffer fills?
Select all methods applied to preserve event order and time context.
Smallest time unit needed for analytics or control (e.g., 1 ms, 100 ms).
Which system is treated as the authoritative clock for correlation.
Briefly describe what processing happens on the edge (aggregation, filtering, transformation, ML inference), and why.
Which workloads are kept at the edge vs upstream? Note rationale (latency, bandwidth, cost, reliability).
Select applied controls that isolate OT and protect data in transit and at rest.
Basic checks: alternate network, queued-forwarding, manual export procedures, or cold backup.
E.g.,
Select checks that help detect loss, corruption, or reordering.
Select the alert categories currently in place.
Acceptable upper bound for event availability in analytics or MES. Leave blank if not defined.
Include steps taken (e.g., disable uplink for X minutes), expected behavior, and what you observed.
Yes if data was retained, correctly ordered/timestamped, and forwarded without unacceptable loss after recovery.
Date when recovery/ resilience tests were performed.
List next steps, owners, and target dates for improvements discovered during this review.
Useful for tracking improvement over time.
1.0 10.0
Links to logs, screenshots, test artifacts, or configuration snippets are helpful.
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