There are many incentives for industrial organizations to align OT and IT — such as better information for decision-making, lower costs, reduced risk, and standardization — but bridging the two worlds is no easy feat. Not only are the technologies different, but their methodologies and approaches are different when it comes to arriving at a solution. Dealing with these differences can sometimes hinder the progress towards a more connected enterprise.

To help you anticipate these issues, let’s now look at three of the biggest challenges of OT-IT alignment.

Challenge: Security

Security is the most significant challenge in the alignment of OT and IT. The reality is that the proliferation of sensors and other smart, connected devices has brought with it an increase in security vulnerabilities. OT and IT have historically had differing security needs although they have become more similar over time as data has become more important.

Operational systems have used proprietary technologies that made them less likely to be targeted for attacks. In effect, these systems have avoided being targets through “security by obscurity.” OT systems have also been fairly self-contained by only having a few connections to other systems. Before IT infrastructures made data sharing possible, there was little need for data to leave the plant and manufacturing floor. Without the need to connect to networks and the Internet, security was not of high importance.

Information technology and enterprise systems are well-connected to multiple systems via a LAN and a WAN such as the Internet. Because of this connectivity, IT and enterprise systems are frequently under attack. With that said, there is a higher level of an acceptable security risk because IT usually has a higher tolerance for downtime. From an OT perspective, any attack that results in downtime could equate to millions in lost revenue, and thus, their tolerance for downtime is much lower.

Challenge: Lack of Standardization in OT

Like security, standardization is a great concern for many organizations, especially those in the industrial space. Since proprietary technology is prevalent in OT, standards are fairly hard to come by. For example, most traditional process historians use a proprietary method of storing data. Since process historians do not use standards, they make it challenging to share data easily and quickly to enterprise systems.

Then there is the fact that edge-of-network devices tend to use different protocols for sending and receiving data, and there is the issue of interoperability; namely, how do we make all of these different kinds of devices all connect to each other?

Customers want to achieve a common infrastructure, and doing so requires laying the groundwork to achieve standardized communication protocols which IT has already established. To align OT and IT, the challenge will be to find a solution that uses standards so that systems across an organization, from the plant floor all the way to the top floor, can easily

Challenge: Determining the Best Approach to OT-IT Alignment

OT and IT have different approaches when it comes to determining and implementing a solution. OT approaches each problem from the bottom up, while IT uses a top-down approach. The challenging question is which of the two is best-suited to lead the OT-IT alignment.

Conventional wisdom suggests that IT should lead the charge since the overall business processes and business intelligence reside at the enterprise level. However, this overlooks the fact that a staggering 90% of the data and information necessary to effectively run an industrial organization is stranded out in the field, on the plant floor, and at the edges of the network. To put it simply, OT is where most of the data is. Therefore, OT-IT alignment should be approached from the OT perspective, which is from the ground up.

Professionals in the OT and IT must be willing to work together and acknowledge each side’s strengths and weaknesses. The IT side must recognize that top-down methodologies may not take into account the importance of stability and security, and the variety of protocols, in SCADA solutions. The OT side must recognize that IT has incredible potential to bring OT data into the enterprise. Since most of the needed data resides on the OT level, the ground-up approach is the best path to a fully functional solution that combines the proven OT and IT technologies.

There is an incredible opportunity for something innovative to come out of the current OT-IT convergence. Now that we know what the challenges are, we can get a clearer picture of what the ideal platform for OT-IT alignment would look like. The ideal platform is a practical solution that addresses concerns with security and standardization and allows you to innovate rapidly. It can handle devices from the edge of the network all the way up to the enterprise level, and it can run alongside your enterprise infrastructure, without compromise. In the final article in the series, we will look deeper into this ideal OT-IT platform.