IT vs. OT - No more silos!

It's always the same: As the size of the company increases, so does its productive and business inefficiency. Almost a law of nature that results from a lack of coordination, redundant costs and competition between departments.

This is particularly noticeable when two departments in a company are pursuing the same tasks and goals, e.g. the two IT departments.

Wait a minute, two IT departments? Where is that?

Answer: In many German companies.

We are talking about IT (Information Technology) and OT (Operational Technology). While "IT" is a common term these days, denoting the governance, monitoring and control of data and data processing systems, "OT" should still raise a questioning frown from most people. However, the task of OT is probably older than IT itself.

Let's look at a definition of the term:

„Operational technology (OT) is hardware and software that detects or causes a change, through the direct monitoring and/or control of industrial equipment, assets, processes and events.“

(Thanks, Wikipedia).

So, the task of OT is the management, monitoring and control of machines and physical systems. Industrial plant control has existed since the first industrial revolution and for a long time was primarily characterized by technology from mechanical and electrical engineering. An OT is typically found in companies with an industrial infrastructure as their business basis: Industrial manufacturing, public utilities, energy suppliers and other service providers, to name just a few examples.

The Times they are a-Changin‘

With the emergence of information technology - from the point of view of today's Internet services - exotic and mostly proprietary protocols and transmission technologies found their way into this area. Or when was the last time you used IEC-60870-5-101, PROFIBUS and SINAUT-8FW in your IT?

The planning horizon was also completely different for a long time: Where lifecycles of 5-10 years are usual in IT, expected runtimes for OT systems of 25 years and more were normal. Over a long period of time, IT and OT have developed almost independently of each other due to the different technical conditions. The departments in the company were also mostly clearly separated in organizational and operational terms, although they are very similar in nature and goals.

However, the conditions have changed in the last 20 years: Due to the global triumph of Ethernet and IP and the rise to de facto standards of worldwide communication, these also advanced into OT technology and became the basis for subsequent standards such as IEC-60870-5 -104 and PROFINET. The open interfaces, interoperability and spread of Industrial Ethernet and IPv6 form the basis of the current fourth industrial revolution, namely Industry 4.0..

The second major development, the Internet of Things (IoT), i.e. the coverage and metering of our physical environment through digital networking, is even more recent and currently a market-dominant topic. Sounds familiar? That's right, classic OT tasks are actually IoT projects.

IT/OT convergence for more efficiency

And today? Those responsible in OT and IT have understood that their paths will cross and that they will continue on a common road. The increasing convergence of IT and OT makes long dormant potential usable: Reduction of operating costs through the creation of synergies, avoidance of isolated solutions as well as use and transfer of internal know-how between the departments. Further urgent topics such as operational sustainability and improvement of technical adaptation can only be realistically achieved in cooperation.

These opportunities should be high on the agenda of every Chief Digital Officer (CDO).

Nevertheless, there is a lot of lost ground to make up for. Affected companies are accelerating, setting up specialized teams for digitization and addressing all the important trends of recent years in countless parallel projects. Unfortunately, a common IT/OT strategy often falls by the wayside.

In the wild, this sometimes rises strange blossoms when customer projects repeatedly encounter the same challenges in terms of basic services that are not available company-wide. The result: A "small" version of the missing services is implemented dedicated and only for this solution. Beware that there is a show stopper in the project. In this way, as a service company, you will find e.g. dozens of identical firewall clusters, management systems in packs of 10 and a handful of competing certificate servers in customer networks. Each solution environment has its own basic infrastructure. The service often already exists in the company, just in the wrong place, not sufficiently dimensioned or with unclear responsibilities. Just silos.

Digital Foundation as a highway

To stay with the metaphor: How do you get the wheel on the road as quickly as possible, i.e. practically usable results?

By creating a Digital Foundation in the enterprise, a zone that offers common functions such as interconnectivity, basic services, IT security and operations with sufficient quality and scale for the entire enterprise. Although the characteristics and top-level applications of the IT and OT areas will probably remain individual, there are enormous opportunities for synergies and aggregation underneath in the basis.

Even if everyone keeps their own vehicle, the road does not have to be built twice.

Centralized foundation services accelerate every project, prevent redundant costs and strengthen cyber and operational security. They create long-term perspectives for IT and OT specialists, promote interdisciplinary work and enable smooth management of the connected solutions. 

Since these basic services are required in every environment without exception, they form the basis for fast, digital transformation without the handbrake on and save your staff a lot of headaches.

Let's be honest: The way is not the goal. But it should already be built before you want to drive off.