Abstract
Currently, cloud computing offers flexible, dynamic and cost effective computing outsourcing, but it limits these economic and operational benefits to non real-time and non safety-critical systems. This is because of the lack of alternative control, supported by current cloud infrastructures, in case of a broken cloud link. While steps have been taken in using cloud infrastructures for soft real-time systems in industrial operations, such as using a virtualised PLC from a cloud, a gap still exists in appropriate handling of operations in the case of a broken cloud link. This paper proposes a new hybrid approach for providing control services from the cloud that can handle the essential communication locally in case of a broken cloud link. The proposed approach is also tested with two different scenarios for an initial evaluation.