Key Factors for OT Leaders in the High Availability Environment

There is a discussion that is becoming more and more frequent in offices and production plants. Normally the discussion is fluid, but sometimes it can end with someone from your technology teams crossing their arms and looking down when it comes to understanding the technological issues of the other team.

Aren’t all processing systems the same? The answer is “definitely NO!”. It is increasingly common to find small conflicts in the plant between IT teams and OT (Operations Technology) teams, since the technologies used by these converge more and more closely, but the points of view of both are still very far apart.

Until very recently, PLCs and SCADA were ‘Stand Alone’ systems, without any network connectivity, however, now we find that all these systems are interconnected with each other, and not only that, but many are accessible from the outside. In addition, these systems are the ones that control the productivity of the plant, and therefore must be fault-tolerant, in order to eliminate all unplanned shutdowns (Downtime). This last point is one of the biggest concerns of the OT team. However, it must be understood that it is normally the IT team that maintains and configures these systems, so it is evident that efforts must be combined.

I would like to recommend a very interesting Webinar given by ‘ARC Advisory Group‘ in which all these topics that I mentioned above will be discussed, focused in a special way on OT teams and high availability systems. This Webinar will be held on June 7. You can go to ‘Contact’ and send me a message, and I will send you all the information related to the Webinar and an invitation.

We are going to give some brushstrokes on how to evaluate the availability of your automation system, and you will be guided with a series of good practices to improve collaboration with those responsible for IT. It is important to understand how the convergence between IT and OT can be aligned to implement a better solution – one that fits into current systems and supports Standards required by everyone in the industry, such as OPC. In addition, it is important to establish the foundations of new technologies such as Virtualization and the much-mentioned ‘Cloud’ and the IIoT, and how these technologies can help us in our day to day in the plant (we will also address these topics in future Posts).

I await your comments and requests to register for the Webinar. I’m already registered!