Controlling an industrial process using virtualized instances of control software

The non-transitory computer medium comprising computer-executable instructions that, when by a computer, result in:

• providing process data of the industrial process to an active instance of a control software as input, wherein the process data comprises at least one of a set of process variables of the industrial process, and plant variables of the industrial plant executing this process;
• based on the input, updating an internal state of the active instance of the control software that is based on a set of internal variables of the active instance;
• based on the updated internal state, determining by the active instance an output signal, and outputting the output signal to at least one piece of equipment that is configured to alter a state and/or a behavior of the industrial process in a tangible way;
• and
• providing a prioritized subset of the internal variables that characterize the state of the active instance to at least one further instance of a control software that is configured to take over control of the industrial process in case of a failure and/or malfunction of the active instance,
• wherein the computer-executable instructions further comprise operating a failover manager, the failover manager executing a failover method, the failover method comprising:
• mapping a given set of requirements for the behavior of the control system in case of failure and/or malfunction of an active instance of a control software to a configuration of:
• one or more further instances of a control software that are to take over control of the industrial process following the failure and/or malfunction;
• and
• respective prioritized subsets of internal variables of the active instance that are to be provided to these further instances;
• based at least in part on a determined configuration, creating at least the one or more further instances in respective virtualized execution environments on at least one virtualization platform;
• and
• orchestrating and/or performing a transfer of the respective prioritized subsets of internal variables from the active instance to the respective further instances of a control software.