The Industrial Internet of Things (IIoT), Industry 4.0 and the convergence of Information Technology (IT) and Operational Technology (OT) is dramatically impacting the industrial product solution ecosystem. Everything from a simple sensor to an entire control system, including communication and integration standards, is driving a new way of thinking about the industrial computing environment.
To date, IT and OT have been in scope for different data domain experts in the manufacturing world. While IT and OT have different needs, the increasing need to overlap these territories will deliver a unified approach to data-driven smart manufacturing practices. These innovations will revive manufacturing’s critical infrastructure with new service-oriented architectures uniting communications for both the business and operating workforce.
FDT Group’s new FDT (3.0) Unified Environment (UE), with its FDT Server and built-in OPC UA Server solution, enables robust IT/OT integration and provides a secure gateway to network/device data and health information. The standard offers OPC UA Client/Server-authenticated access to operating data, and its utilization of a Publish-Subscribe environment allows for real-time data exchange.