# Interoperable Data Analytics Reference Architectures Empowering Digital-Twin-Aided Manufacturing
## 4 Data Provisioning Reference Architectures
### Data Provisioning and Processing Reference Architectures  
As described above, some data providers already have their own data provisioning service, which only needs to be connected to the processing algorithms; however, this may not always be the case. Although customers on the DIGITbrain Platform (manufacturing companies) may have their data sources (sensors, PLCs, etc.) set up on-premise and may have some local data collectors, these data are not accessible for remote processing over the Internet. They can neither run data analytics on their own data, nor they can offer their data for other parties.  
The DIGITbrain Platform offers support for solving this problem for all three scenarios described in Section 4.2 and at different levels of abstraction, by providing them with a set of data provisioning building blocks (SACs, SAFs, and DARAs) to choose from. These building blocks are Reference Architecture components representing best-practice techniques and blueprints that are pre-configured, tested, and ready to be integrated into larger data analytics architectures. The method of support varies depending on whether:  
1. The customer has the infrastructure to host a data provisioning service (hardware, Internet connection, public IP address) and wants to keep data on-premises;
2. The customer has no proper infrastructure but wishes to use DIGITbrain services to deploy the data storage to be operated in the cloud.  
To support case 1, the platform provides guidelines, which are essentially textual descriptions of necessary installation and configuration steps with supplementary figures and videos. These installation instructions are composed in way that they require moderate-level IT expertise and are mostly based on Docker and Docker-Compose technologies for quick and portable deployments. For databases, DIGITbrain offers deployment of: MySQL Server, MongoDB, PostgreSQL, Redis, InfluxDB, TimescaleDB, and Apache Cassandra. For object stores, it offers MinIO [36], SFTP Server, Apache HDFS, and NFS File Server [37]. For streaming data, the users can currently choose among: Mosquito MQTT, Apache Kafka, and RabbitMQ.  
In case 2, the deployment is even more straightforward for customers. The same set of data provisioning software is available as a set of applications (APPs, implementing Reference Architectures or its building blocks) that can be started with one click from the DIGITbrain Platform. The users only have to provide some basic configuration information, such as what databases and topic names are to be created at startup, what password to use for access, and what certificate files to use for encryption. The storage will be deployed in the cloud and will run until the user explicitly stops the application.  
While designing such data provisioning Reference Architecture components, security considerations were of high importance. All the setups include mandatory authentication and traffic encryption, and can easily be further extended or customized on demand with replication, load balancing, automated backups, and other useful features.