Pipelines

CI/CD for Industrial Devices

Pipelines

Pipelines in SDA provide an automated, repeatable way to execute common OT engineering and lifecycle tasks across devices, projects, and environments. Similar to CI/CD concepts in IT, pipelines bring structure and automation to industrial operations—but they are optimized specifically for PLCs, drives, robots, HMIs, and other automation assets.

SDA has implemented a set of OT-focused pipeline actions that streamline tasks traditionally performed manually by engineers. These pipelines can be triggered on-demand, scheduled, or event-driven, and run securely in the cloud while orchestrating activity on the SDA Gateway for local execution inside the OT network.

Using pipelines, engineering teams can:

• Deploy PLC code consistently across one or many devices, with version tracking and validation.

• Perform backups of PLCs and HMIs, ensuring the latest project files are centrally stored, versioned, and accessible.

• Rotate passwords and credentials on supported devices, improving security hygiene and reducing manual overhead.

• Merge PLC libraries or project components, enabling standardized code reuse and enforcing development patterns.

• Execute custom automation tasks, providing a flexible mechanism to enforce engineering workflows, compliance steps, or fleet-wide maintenance activities.

Note: Not all pipeline actions are available for every vendor or device family. Pipeline capabilities depend on what each vendor exposes through APIs, command-line utilities, or engineering software integrations. Refer to the Pipeline Action Capability Matrix by Vendor for details on what actions are available for each platform.

By combining cloud orchestration, OT-aware actions, and secure gateway execution, SDA Pipelines deliver a modern, automated approach to managing industrial automation environments—improving consistency, reducing human error, and enabling true Industrial DevOps practices at scale.