Industrial IoT Myths – Busted!

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It looks like the Industrial IoT is growing and spreading so quickly that a whole mythology is getting built up around it.  In a recent blog, Teri Maltais at RtTech Software identifies four Industrial IoT myths, and deconstructs them.  From what we can see, these myths are founded on real concerns among industrial users.  Here is how Maltais addresses them:

Cost concerns: Maltais says that on-premise and IIoT solutions offer essentially the same functionality, and provide the same ROI.  However, IIoT solutions replace the cost of up-front capital investment with monthly operating-expense payments, making them more cost-effective.

Security concerns: She breaks down the topic of security into three areas: 1) on-site, 2) communication, and 3) cloud level security.  On-site security is the same as always, he says—pay attention to passwords, physical access, anti-virus software, etc.  Her discussion of inbound and outbound communication covers the security features of a few data protocols (a discussion which we believe could be strengthened by mentioning a secure-by-design approach like Skkynet’s).  At the cloud level she suggests what to look for in a good service provider, and quotes a Microsoft study in which small and midsize companies were shown to gain security benefits.

Concerns about too much data: RtTech Software, whom Maltais works for, provides tools for collecting and analyzing production data.  She says that tools such as theirs can be used to manage the large amount of data generated from IIoT systems.

Concerns about a track record: Maltais acknowledges that the IIoT has a limited track record, due in large part to the fact that it is new.  But, she adds, many IIoT applications are essentially the same as on-premise software, as mentioned above.

One take-away is that the Industrial IoT may have more in common with on-premise systems than you would expect. This point of view fits well with Skkynet’s evolutionary approach to the Industrial IoT, which provides a secure and seamless path of growth from in-plant to remote data access that can be implemented gradually, and on an as-needed basis.

Industrial SaaS Whitepaper

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We just posted a new whitepaper discussion on “What is a Good Approach to Industrial SaaS.”  Software as a Service (“SaaS”) provides access to hosted software over a network, typically the Internet, and is closely related to the concepts of smart factories, cloud computing, industrial Internet, machine-to-machine (M2M), and the Internet of Things (IoT).

“A chain is only as strong as its weakest link,” goes the old saying. How true that is in industrial control systems. … Factory automation, power generation, resource extraction and processing, transportation and logistics are all supported by chains of mechanisms, hardware, and software, as well as operators and engineers that must each carry out their mission to produce the expected output, product, or service.

The whitepaper goes into a discussion of the key qualities a what is necessary for widespread acceptance of industrial SaaS, such as:

  1. Security: industrial systems require the highest possible level of security, and achieving it over unsecured networks involves a comprehensive approach from the design stage of the overall system.
  2. Robustness: industrial software as a service should provide as close to real-time performance as the network or Internet infrastructure will support, such as milliseconds updates, thousands of data changes per second, and support redundant connections with hot swap over capability.
  3. Adaptability: industrial SaaS should be able to connect seamlessly to any new or installed system at any number of locations with no changes to hardware or software, using open data protocols and APIs, and readily scale up or down depending on user needs.
  4. Convenience: industrial SaaS should be convenient to use, from ease of demoing, to sign up, configuration, usage monitoring and low cost.  It should offer off-the-shelf tools to get your data to and from the cloud with no programming, provide the ability to easily integrate data from multiple sources, and include options like data storage and HMI displays–all without disrupting the industrial process in any way.

Read the Whitepaper.

Renesas Plays a Card from the Apple Deck

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Is Renesas following Apple’s lead? Yes, according to Rich Nass, Brand Director at Embedded Computing Design magazine and website. In a recent blog he points out some similarities between the Renesas Synergy platform and the Apple development environment. Both, he says, are closed systems–which can have some advantages.

For years, Apple has controlled their platform. Setting standards and restricting the number and variety of developers in this way, Nass argues, paid off for users, giving them software that “always worked, and worked well.”

Renesas has just unveiled their newest product, Renesas Synergy, an embedded platform that “accelerates embedded development, inspiring innovation and enabling differentiation.”  Much of this power comes from a standardized development environment, in which Renesas supplies the OS and tools, in addition to a number of third-party applications, or Verified Software Add-ons (VSAs).

Nass compares the Renesas VSA program to Apple’s App Store.  To qualify as a VSA, the software is rigorously tested by Renesas, and once approved, it is fully supported now and in all future versions of Synergy.  “In the long run, that’s good for everyone,” says Nass, “because developers will get a good experience, but the process may take longer and may cost a little more.”

For Skkynet’s Embedded Toolkit (ETK), the verification process is already complete, and it is among the very first VSAs to be approved by Renesas for Synergy.  Available at no cost, the ETK actually opens opportunities for revenue sharing for companies using the Renesas Synergy Platform, and it provides immediate connectivity to the Industrial IoT (either in plant or using SkkyHub Web Services).  SkkyHub’s combination of speed, reliability, and security mean that embedded developers using Synergy can get full access to best of breed IoT service for their projects, just by ticking off a few boxes in their development environment.

Whether Renesas is actually following Apple’s lead or not, the idea of using standard modules of proven value to handle basic tasks, while freeing our minds to invent and build, can be found at all levels–from Lego to object-oriented programming.  Success or failure will ultimately depend on the quality of the blocks, as well as the creative spirit of the developer.

System Integrators Prepare for Smart Manufacturing

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Luigi De Bernardini, CEO at Autoware, in Vicenza, Italy, sees that system integrators are going to need to adapt quickly to the idea of software-as-a-service in manufacturing.  In a recent guest blog in AutomationWorld, he says, “System integrators will have to be ready to change their business model, at least in part, by offering subscription services …”

According to De Barnardini, assuming that every company will sooner or later  incorporate the Industrial IoT, cloud computing, analytics and Big Data into its evolving smart manufacturing formula, system integrators need to wake up right away, and smell the coffee.

He offers two insights:

1. The move from system and software ownership towards software-as-a-service makes good economic sense.

2. Although adopting software-as-a-service reduces the complexity of that specific service, there is still a need for system integrators to bring together the different solutions into a coherent whole.

The upshot, he says, is that system integrators need to support the traditional business model, while at the same time offering services to customers moving towards the Industrial IoT.

Interestingly, this is the same approach that Skkynet takes–with the Cogent DataHub supporting traditional, in-plant data connectivity and integration, and yet also connecting seamlessly to SkkyHub and the ETK for secure, remote data access and other Industrial IoT applications.

Have you taken the IIoT Survey?

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The ARC Advisory Group is offering a survey on the Industrial Internet of Things, to “get a solid read on how ready organizations are for seizing the many opportunities” that are becoming available through the IIoT.  Has your company taken the survey yet?  You can access it here:

http://www.arcweb.com/research/Lists/Posts/Post.aspx?ID=143

ARC states that this brief, 10 to 15 minute IIoT survey “is open to suppliers of industrial technology and equipment, machinery manufacturers and industrial companies, such as manufacturers and oil and gas operators.”

Skkynet encourages anyone working in any of these areas to take the IIoT survey, and thus increase the general understanding of the interest in the IIoT. Each participant will receive a free summary of the key findings from the ARC Advisory Group.

Connecting Enterprises Need Secure-by-Design

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All over the world, enterprises are connecting. Inspired or pushed by the growing interest in the Internet of Things (IoT), companies are looking into how they can connect and exchange data with their customers, their suppliers, their branches, and among themselves. And they are quickly discovering that current security models are not adequate. A recent Frost & Sullivan report points towards “security-by-design” instead of “security-by-default” as critical for the connected enterprise.

How did we get to this point? On the industrial side, operational technology (OT) has garnered a wealth of experience in data connectivity through SCADA (Supervisory Control and Data Acquisition) systems that provide plant-wide real-time communications for mission-critical industrial processes. In this space, the promise of the Internet of Things (IoT) is being embraced and extended as the Industrial IoT (or IIoT) among the likes of GE, IBM, and others.

At the same time, these new opportunities for connecting to the plant have caught the interest of the traditional information technology (IT) people within the enterprise. For decades the “top floor” of management has been cut off from what happens on the “shop floor” of operations. Now, using IIoT technologies, it seems that there may be new ways of connecting IT to OT, and integrating enterprise systems directly with operations and production.

The big challenge is security. “Solution providers in the IT and the OT ecosystems must join hands to deploy end-to-end cyber security solutions for industrial systems,” according to Julia Nikishkina at Frost & Sullivan in a summary of the report.

The traditional security model for OT networks has until recently relied mainly on physically restricting all access. Many companies simply do not connect their plant operations network to the Internet―at all. As demand for inbound and outbound data access has grown, companies have been turning to VPNs or other add-on security measures to allow some level of connectivity. These, according to the Frost & Sullivan report, are woefully inadequate.

“The influx of IT solutions into the operational technology space highlights the need for security-by-design rather than security-by-default,” says Nikishkina. “As a majority of industries upgrade to smart systems and processes, industrial cybersecurity will soon make the inevitable shift from a reactive operating model to a proactive design philosophy.”

The Frost & Sullivan report describes what is a daily reality for us at Skkynet. Our SkkyHub service demonstrates how secure-by-design actually works, providing a platform for seamless, end-to-end data connectivity between OT and IT. By keeping all firewall ports closed at both the OT and IT ends, it exposes no attack surface to the Internet, and yet provides bidirectional data flow in real time.