Planning and people are key to a seamless OT network migration journey

30Jun

Much has changed since operation technology (OT) was deployed primarily in industrial control systems for manufacturing, transportation and utilities, using mechanical devices. In other words, it was not networked. Today, there has been a sea change, with physical devices turning ‘smart’, and IT and OT convergence is the order of the day.

Wireless connectivity has led to a more efficient monitoring system, enabling remote control of physical devices from any location around the globe. Furthermore, there have been tremendous strides in machine-to-machine (M2M) communication and machine learning, making it possible to use the data produced by physical devices and enable real-time analysis.

In most organisations, IT gets the lion’s share of budgets for regular hardware and software upgrades, while the OT network that actually runs the production lines is a poor cousin. OT networks have to wait until spares are unavailable or even obsolete, and to quote what a customer said recently, they ‘couldn’t find any more spares on eBay’.

Even today, most OT networks are old and obsolete, and have no spare bandwidth or capacity to accommodate new systems, thus hampering inventory control, tracking, traceability, and data production.

The most effective solution to this problem is to replace these networks. This can be a watershed moment for any plant or organisation, a perfect time to future-proof everything. It is time to design a network that is modular, scalable, and customised. But replacing a network that runs 24/7 is very complex. You must make sure the existing one still runs, while you are installing the replacement, to avoid costly disruption...

Read the full article in the July issue of PBSI