Discovery service in a software defined control system

A method for providing discovery software as a service in a process plant, the method comprising:

• obtaining, via a discovery service executing via a container on a compute node within a software defined process control system (SDCS), an announcement indicative of a presence of a physical or logical asset of the process plant utilized during run-time of the process plant to control at least a portion of the industrial process;
• determining, by the discovery service, an identity of the physical or logical asset based on one or more parameters of the physical or logical asset indicated in the announcement, the one or more parameters including an asset tag of the physical or logical asset;
• and
• storing, in a discovered item data store, a record of the discovered physical or logical asset, the record including an indication of the identity of the physical or logical asset, a set of capabilities of the physical or logical asset, and a location of the physical or logical asset within the SDCS.