Introduction
The industrial landscape is witnessing a significant convergence of Operational Technology (OT) and Information Technology (IT), promising enhanced efficiency and data-driven decision-making. This integration is crucial; without it, industrial organizations risk falling behind in their digital transformation and smart connected operations. Yet, the journey toward OT-IT integration has been fraught with challenges, including security issues, integration hurdles, and data management complexities.
Recently, AWS announced the deployment of AWS IoT SiteWise Edge, an on-premises software solution that simplifies the collection, organization, processing, and monitoring of equipment data. This software can now be directly accessed through the Siemens Industrial Edge Marketplace, making it easier and more cost-effective to transfer industrial equipment data to the AWS cloud. This new offering is designed to bridge the gap between OT and IT, enabling customers to quickly ingest OT data from a variety of industrial protocols into the cloud using Siemens Industrial Edge Devices that are already connected to machines. This eliminates unnecessary configuration layers and accelerates time to value.
In this discussion, we will delve into the importance of OT-IT integration for industrial transformation, the hindrances posed by data silos, and the advantages of centralizing the deployment and management of Industrial Internet of Things (IIoT) applications from the edge to the cloud. For further insights, check out this related blog post here.
Eliminating Data Silos: A Necessity for Industrial Transformation
The fusion of OT and IT is essential for driving industrial transformation, particularly in the digitalization of the manufacturing sector. OT encompasses systems that control industrial processes, such as supervisory control systems (SCADA) and programmable logic controllers (PLCs), while IT focuses on systems that support corporate functions, managing tools and network systems for administrative and operational activities.
While both OT and IT handle data on a large scale, this data has often been trapped in isolated pockets, making it difficult to access and integrate. This lack of visibility across the shop floor and the larger enterprise has led to costly investments in custom solutions and point-to-point integrations that do not scale or offer repeatability across different use cases and facilities.
Emerging initiatives like Smart Manufacturing envision a future where real-time information flows seamlessly between production and business systems. Achieving this vision requires breaking down data silos and integrating both domains for enhanced process optimization and information exchange. In essence, OT-IT integration aims for a unified approach that maximizes efficiency in manufacturing operations, promising benefits such as:
- Improved Efficiency and Productivity: Integration streamlines operational processes, allowing data to flow seamlessly across the organization, leading to reduced downtime and waste.
- Data-Driven Decision Making: OT systems generate extensive data, which IT systems can process and analyze to produce actionable insights, improving quality and production speeds while lowering costs.
- Enhanced Security and Compliance: Integrated data enhances traceability, facilitating compliance with regulations and standards while applying IT-grade security protocols to protect against cyber threats.
- Cost Savings: An integrated environment can yield significant cost reductions through predictive maintenance and real-time energy monitoring, while eliminating costly middleware.
- Scalability: OT-IT integration improves data management and resource utilization, making data generated by operational technologies more accessible and usable across the enterprise.
Despite these understood benefits, the adoption of IIoT applications remains slow due to ongoing concerns regarding upfront infrastructure investments, interoperability challenges posed by legacy systems, potential security vulnerabilities, and the complexities of connecting OT systems to broader networks. For expert insights on this topic, visit this link.
Closing the Gap Between IT and OT, Starting at the Edge
Recent advances in cloud technologies—particularly in hybrid cloud, security, IoT, and edge computing—have enabled the industrial sector to harness the value of digital transformation workflows for operational optimization and innovation. Hybrid cloud and IoT software deployed on-premises have addressed latency and bandwidth issues, ensuring efficient collection and processing of the vast amounts of data generated by OT systems. However, a gap in OT-IT integration persists, hindering industrial customers from establishing a streamlined data ingestion, management, and analysis pipeline.
Currently, the process of transferring data from machines (OT) to the cloud (IT) involves various systems that must be integrated, leading to longer project deployment times and increased overhead costs. This requires configuring middleware, translating numerous industrial data protocols, and provisioning IT infrastructure for each use case. The challenge remains: how can we enable efficient and cost-effective raw machine data ingestion and processing closer to the source, at the edge?
AWS IoT SiteWise Edge Now Available on the Siemens Industrial Edge Marketplace
Amazon Web Services (AWS) and Siemens have a longstanding partnership focused on leveraging new cloud technologies to accelerate digital transformation. With this latest announcement, these industry leaders are combining the power of industrial automation (OT) and cloud computing (IT) to offer a more streamlined machine-to-edge and edge-to-cloud experience for manufacturing customers.
Customers can now initiate industrial data ingestion from machine to edge (Level 1 and Level 2 OT networks) by deploying AWS IoT SiteWise Edge using existing Siemens Industrial Edge infrastructure and connectivity applications like SIMATIC S7+ Connector and Modbus TCP Connector. This enables secure aggregation and processing of data from numerous machines and production lines (Level 3), while also facilitating its transfer to the AWS cloud for diverse use cases. This empowers process engineers, maintenance technicians, and efficiency advocates to unlock business value from operational data that is organized and contextualized for use in both local and cloud applications, paving the way for use cases such as asset monitoring. For more excellent resources, see this article.
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