Every machine builder needs the same digital building blocks: edge device management, AI enabled edge applications, secure remote access and cloud connectivity. Yet many companies still build these capabilities from scratch – or piece them together from proprietary solutions that create cost, complexity and long-term dependencies.
For European machine builders, this is becoming a strategic question. Digital infrastructure increasingly determines how companies can operate independently, how securely they can connect machines and customers, and how quickly they can bring new digital services to market. In short: Sovereignty, Security and Speed.
SEALMAN was created around exactly these three principles. Initiated by GEA and Welotec and hosted under the umbrella of the Eclipse Foundation, SEALMAN is an open, vendor-neutral ecosystem for Industrial IoT infrastructure. It brings together proven building blocks across the stack, from a hardened Linux operating system and containerized workloads via Docker to open interfaces based on MQTT, OPC UA and REST. Together they form a foundation that machine builders can use, adapt and operate on their own terms, without handing control of a critical part of their digital infrastructure to a single vendor.
The idea is straightforward: the basic infrastructure should not be the differentiator. It should be open, secure and under your control. Once that foundation is in place, teams can focus their resources where they matter most – build and provide applications, digital services and solutions that create value for their customers.
In this webinar, Thomas Baur (GEA Group AG) and Mirko Holthaus (Welotec) will put that idea into practice. Rather than presenting another architecture concept, they will build a working SEALMAN setup live in 75 minutes. Starting with the resources available on GitHub and DockerHub, they will install the system, connect an OPC-UA device and configure user and access management – all the way to a running infrastructure and the first live data connection.
And this is not just a demo to watch. The required resources will be available in advance, so participants can follow the setup on their own system and experience firsthand how quickly an open-source ecosystem can become an independent IIoT infrastructure they control themselves. "For us at GEA, one thing is clear: real progress in digital engineering happens through collaboration and shared standards." – Tom Oelsner, Chief Digital Officer, GEA
