The industrial world talks about IIoT and digital transformation but is still hampered by islands of automation where important data is stranded and unreachable by the enterprise’s IT infrastructure. Any solution, whether deployed at the edge or in the cloud – and more commonly both – must be compatible with operations technology (OT) systems and legacy technologies yet incorporate the latest information technology (IT) innovations for communications, accessibility, and security. At the edge, in the cloud, and for the connections between them, openness, interoperability, cybersecurity and connectivity are vital to successful implementations.
A new white paper from Emerson experts identifies some of the most common reasons end users struggle with stranded data, and how a modern edge-to-cloud industrial internet of things (IIoT) solution makes it easy to access and use this data. Download this white paper to learn more. In addition, you can also download an application note on bringing data to Microsoft SQL Azure for management and analysis.
Traditionally, industrial automation systems were installed strictly on-premises and largely constrained by the specific hardware and software technologies available. OT devices were often installed with “just enough” processing power and therefore lack the necessary computing and storage elasticity to deliver on the full potential of the data often desired with the new class of analysis tools. Most of the familiar OT-centric software is not designed from the ground up for cloud connectivity, and certain features and even basic security requirements may be implemented inconsistently as add-ons/bolt-ons. In many cases, IT-centric software is not attuned to the always-on, low-latency, and high-volume data needs of an OT environment, and fails to offer a broad set of vendor connectivity controls. Security as an afterthought is not good enough; it must be built-in at all levels of the solution.
Pulling together ill-suited software to create an IIoT solution is problematic, can require kludgy custom scripts, and is hard to support. With these needs and challenges in mind, some users may question how to recognize stranded data so they can begin taking steps to liberate it with an appropriate solution.
Register for and download this important white paper today.
What stranded data is holding your enterprise back?