Your Industrial Network Infrastructure Needs a Revamp to Keep Pace with Evolving Industries

The urgency for digitalization has heightened due to recent global events, prompting companies across various sectors to acknowledge the critical nature of digital transformation in order to stay competitive and avoid falling behind. The pace of innovation in industries is accelerating rapidly. However, many organizations struggle to adapt and future-proof their operations successfully. One common misconception is that digital transformation simply involves deploying new technologies or acquiring the latest equipment.

Remember! Digital transformation is more than just adopting new technology

Mere focus on technology adoption may prevent companies from fully realizing the potential benefits despite significant investments. Achieving digital transformation in industrial settings goes beyond implementing new technologies; it entails seamlessly integrating all network systems. A well-integrated infrastructure is essential for ensuring that new technologies complement existing systems, driving operational enhancements. The convergence of IT and OT has become a widely adopted approach among industry leaders for integrating new systems and unlocking value. According to IDC’s IT/OT convergence survey¹, over 30% of organizations plan to merge operational data from systems such as data historian software, industrial control systems, and asset management into their enterprise data governance framework for the first time.

Enabling IT to access OT data can transform it into a valuable asset, enhancing organizational agility. Thus, the seamless transfer of OT data among application endpoints, control centers, and headquarters is crucial for amalgamating IT and OT systems, ensuring the smooth operation of newly introduced technologies. This underscores the significance of robust industrial networks in facilitating a successful digital transformation.

It’s time for industrial networks to advance

The rise of IT/OT convergence applications has resulted in a proliferation of real-time and diverse data, alongside an influx of OT data. Consequently, the complexity of industrial network infrastructures has greatly increased, making it harder to maintain network reliability. The reliability of machine-to-machine and machine-to-control center communications is crucial for sustaining uninterrupted operations.

Traditionally, maintenance engineers only focused on green indicator lights on network equipment. However, the evolving landscape demands more. Data is now a driving force for innovation, emphasizing the need to ensure the timely and accurate delivery of data. Future-proof networks play a critical role in facilitating this.

Therefore, businesses should emphasize functional reliability by ensuring that their networks not only offer stable connectivity but also support seamless OT data exchange to meet future demands.

Reaching out to specialists for a future-ready industrial network

Transitioning industrial networks towards the future poses challenges for most OT engineers, as it ventures into unfamiliar territory. Shifting to a future industrial networking model presents a host of challenges, including:

• Integrating OT and IT systems exposes traditionally isolated OT networks to external threats, leading to a surge in cybersecurity attacks.
• The proliferation of network connections has heightened management complexity, necessitating innovative strategies to efficiently manage numerous devices.
• Maintaining system reliability while implementing digitalization is key for achieving uninterrupted operations.
• Since industrial networks typically undergo minimal changes yearly, designing networks with long-term usability in mind is vital.

To help businesses navigate these challenges and facilitate a smooth transition of their industrial networks, we provide recommendations. Opting for reliable hardware and software that support seamless data transmission and integration is crucial for maintaining continuous operations. Additionally, prioritizing dedicated OT network security is essential to safeguard against cyber threats and maximize system availability. Lastly, emphasizing intuitive software simplifies network management, reducing the workload on OT engineers. This enables efficient monitoring and maintenance of complex network systems. By leveraging network and data connectivity capabilities, businesses can integrate intelligent features like remote control commands and incident response mechanisms to prepare for future OT applications.

With over 35 years of industry experience and a profound understanding of OT networks, Moxa is dedicated to assisting industrial networks in transitioning to the next generation of networking. Our future-proof networking solutions are crafted to aid businesses in seamlessly merging their IT and OT systems and preparing them for a digitalized future.

By partnering with experts like Moxa, businesses can offload concerns about their industrial networks and focus on embracing digital transformation to exploit digital innovations that enhance performance and set them apart from competitors.

Explore our microsite to delve deeper into Moxa’s cutting-edge networking solutions.

Reference:

1. IDC, Worldwide IT/OT Convergence Survey Findings, 2020