Method for collaborative management of licenses across industrial sectors

A method of managing licenses for a service application across a plurality of interconnected industrial networks, wherein the service application is configured to control a cyber-physical system in a first industrial network, the method being implemented by a computer processing circuit, the method comprising:

• the computer processing circuit selecting, with the first industrial network among the plurality of industrial networks, a policy for delegating the service application to a second industrial network among the plurality of industrial networks;
• the computer processing circuit deploying from the first industrial network into the second industrial network, a local virtual license manager comprising:
• setting a secure communication channel between a first secure connector of the first industrial network and a second secure connector of the second industrial network,
• configuring the secure communication channel, according to the selected delegation policy,
• with the secure communication channel, downloading of a virtual machine into the second industrial network from the first industrial network,
• instantiating the local virtual license manager in the virtual machine;
• and
• the computer processing circuit sending a license for the service application from the first industrial network to the local virtual license manager, the license authorizing the execution of the service application by the second industrial network to control the cyber-physical system,
• wherein the first and second industrial networks are each a multi-access edge computing network.