Virtualization of an industrial control system in an industrial automation system

A non-transitory, tangible, computer-readable medium storing instructions that, when executed by processing circuitry, cause the processing circuitry to perform operations comprising:

• receiving a first container image corresponding to a first deployed container from a container orchestration system;
• executing the first container image to spin up the first deployed container;
• providing a virtualized control system based on the first deployed container, wherein the virtualized control system is communicatively coupled to one or more input terminals able to be coupled to an industrial network device at one or more output terminals;
• receiving data from a second deployed container;
• operating the virtualized control system to expose the data via a symbolic common industrial protocol (CIP) namespace configured to provide symbolic data to the one or more input terminals based on the data;
• and
• transmitting the symbolic data via the one or more input terminals to the industrial network device.

A non-transitory, tangible, computer-readable medium storing instructions that, when executed by first processing circuitry of an industrial network device, cause the industrial network device to perform operations comprising:

• receiving an input/output assignment configured to associate one or more output terminals with one or more input terminals of second processing circuitry and with a virtualized control system, wherein the second processing circuitry is configured to provide the virtualized control system as associated with a control network level disposed below a supervisory network level;
• receiving, via a communicative coupling between the one or more output terminals and the one or more input terminals, data from the virtualized control system based on the input/output assignment, wherein the data was generated in association with an operation of an asset by a container deployed external to the second processing circuitry;
• identifying an adjustment to a visualization presented via a human-machine interface (HMI) based on the data;
• and
• generating one or more control signals to implement the adjustment.