Automatic load balancing and performance leveling of virtual nodes running real-time control in process control systems

A system of an industrial process plant, the system comprising:

• a plurality of virtual nodes disposed in a virtual environment of the industrial process plant and implemented on a virtualization platform, the plurality of virtual nodes operating, during run-time operations of the industrial process plant, to control an industrial process by publishing data to an input/output (I/O) switch and subscribing to data published by the I/O switch, the I/O switch communicatively connecting the plurality of virtual nodes to a plurality of physical nodes disposed in a physical environment of the industrial process plant, the plurality of physical nodes operating, during the run-time operations of the industrial process plant, to control the industrial process by sending data to and receiving data from the plurality of virtual nodes via the I/O switch, and the plurality of physical nodes including at least one field device;
• the plurality of virtual nodes virtualizing at least one of:
• (i) one or more physical components that are deployable within the physical environment of the industrial process plant to control the industrial process, or (ii) one or more sub-components of the one or more physical components,
• each virtual node of the plurality of virtual nodes including a respective at least one component behavior module that operates on content of first data received from the I/O switch via a respective one or more subscriptions to generate second data and that publishes the second data to the I/O switch for delivery to another process control component to thereby control a respective at least a portion of the industrial process,
• a plurality of subscriptions of the plurality of virtual nodes to the data published by the I/O switch corresponding to a first portion of a plurality of I/O assignments, and
• a plurality of publications, by the plurality of virtual nodes, of the data to the I/O switch corresponding to a second portion of the plurality of I/O assignments,
• wherein a load of the virtualization platform is balanced across the plurality of virtual nodes based on the plurality of I/O assignments and a configured boundary condition.