Abstract: A method for automatic generation of a specification for an IT topology of a control system, the method comprising: creating a system structure from a machine-readable data defining production process requirements and generating specification data of the IT topology based on the extracted system structure; optimizing the generated specification data of the IT topology by utilization of pre-defined rules and generating abstract aggregated IT topology data based on the optimized specification data; and instantiating and mapping the abstract aggregated IT topology data to specific technology instance data.

Abstract: A method for creating a virtual deployment of a distributed control system (DCS) for a given industrial process, comprising: providing a topology of the assets executing the industrial process, as well as control logic for controlling these assets; providing at least one I/O simulator that is configured to supply data; determining a topology of devices that form part of the DCS; establishing based at least in part on this topology of devices, at least one declarative and/or imperative description of the DCS that characterizes multiple devices of the DCS, their placement, and their connections; creating virtual instances of the devices of the DCS and their connections in a chosen environment.