Systems and methods for associating modules in a software defined control system for industrial process plants

A process control system includes a plurality of field devices operating to control a process in a process plant. A communication infrastructure couples the plurality of field devices to a software-defined control system (SDCS) that receives data from the field devices and transmits instructions to the field devices. A data cluster, executing the SDCS, includes a plurality of compute nodes, each of which includes a processor executing an operating system, a memory, and a communication resource coupled to one or more other compute nodes in the data cluster. A plurality of instantiated containers, each of which is an isolated execution environment within the operating system of the compute node on which the container is instantiated, cooperate to facilitate execution of a control strategy in the SDCS. At least one of the containers in the SDCS is pinned to a component in the SDCS.