AI Optimizer Infrastructure Roles
AI Optimizer Infrastructure Roles
Summary
The successful deployment of an AI Optimizer Infrastructure relies on a cross-functional team, blending software, data, and OT engineering expertise.
| Key Role | Primary Deliverable(s) / Function | Key Systems, Methods, and Tools |
|---|---|---|
| Data Engineer / Architect | Data Foundation: Builds and maintains scalable data ingestion (e.g., Lakeflow Connect) and processing pipelines (batch/streaming). Implements the Medallion Architecture to clean, enrich, and unify IT/OT data for analytics. | Databricks Lakehouse, Delta Lake, Spark Declarative Pipelines, AWS Glue/Athena/Redshift. |
| ML Engineer / AI Architect | Model Serving: Develops, trains, serves, and audits AI models for predictive maintenance, optimization, or quality control. Wraps the resulting optimized command or recommendation in an Inference Container. | Kubeflow, SageMaker, Docker/Inference Container, Mosaic AI Agent Framework, MLflow. |
| OT Systems Engineer | OT Data Extraction: Configures vendor-sanctioned extraction tools (e.g., creating the "View") to flatten proprietary hierarchical OT data into an analysis-ready format for the cloud. Manages the local OPC UA Server. | OSIsoft PI Data Archive & Asset Framework (AF), PI Integrator for Business Analytics. |
| Cloud Architect / Edge Developer | Airlock/Transport: Owns the secure transport pipe to the edge. Develops the Safety Logic (e.g., custom Python script running in the edge runtime) that performs range checking and rate-of-change validation on the AI output before handoff to the OT network. | AWS IoT Core (MQTT), AWS IoT Greengrass (Edge Runtime), OPC UA Client, Custom Python Scripts. |
| Controls Engineer (DCS Engineer) | Control Authority & UI: Maintains control authority over the physical process and Level 2 devices (PLCs/DCS). Integrates the vetted AI recommendation into the Human-Machine Interface (HMI), creating a faceplate that includes ACCEPT/REJECT buttons for operator control. | DCS Configuration, DCS Graphics, PLC/DCS. |
| Security Architect | Governance & Enforcement: Designs the Zero Trust Architecture and policy framework (network-tier and identity-tier policies). Deploys infrastructure elements (e.g., service mesh components, firewalls) to enforce segmentation and control flow, especially regarding the DMZ/Airlock. | Service Mesh, Sidecar Proxies (PEPs), Policy Engine (PE), ABAC (Attribute-Based Access Control). |
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