Information Technology, Operational Technology, and the Internet of Things
This blog has previously mentioned the relationship between IT Asset Management (normally under the control of IT) and Fixed Asset Management (normally under the control of OT – Operational Technology). In equipment-intensive verticals, such as manufacturing or healthcare, OT is one of the largest categories of non-IT assets.
Examples of operational technology include plant floor control systems, hospital diagnostic and monitoring systems, transportation control systems, automated teller machines (ATMs), civil infrastructure (e.g. tollway automation and water management) and more. Traditionally, while these systems might be computer-based, their technology and communications were proprietary and specialized, and they would be physically isolated from corporate IT networks in the interest of security.
As Cisco’s Maciej Kranz wrote in his book, Building the Internet of Things , there has also been a cultural divide between Information Technology and Operational Technology. He states, “As the worlds of IT and OT begin to converge, a culture clash is usually close behind.” The idea of a weekend shutdown to update software might be unacceptable to operations groups, while IT organizations seeking standardization struggle with the proprietary nature of OT systems. There are many stories of poor relationships between IT and OT, which are independent of vertical or underlying technology.
The Internet of Things (IoT), and digital transformation more broadly, however, are challenging both sides to work together more closely. The IoT requires open, pervasive networking (with all the implied security challenges), and as it expands, networked connections increase, process touchpoints expand, data becomes more widely shared, and governance and control must be managed in a consistent and unified manner.
The scale of shared IT services required, such as network, compute, storage and analytics, is beyond the abilities of most OT organizations to deliver. If IT is to be a service provider, or even a service broker, then thoroughly understanding the needs of OT as a partner becomes increasingly critical.
Operational systems are an organization’s life blood, and IT has too often allowed itself to fall into a role as “order taker,” with a process-driven, back-office and bureaucratic mindset and little sense of urgency – when downtime in a manufacturing plant can amount to tens of thousands of dollars a minute. Conversely, relying on physically separated operational systems means that traditional OT groups haven’t had to build robust networking security capabilities – they are normally focused on controlling physical access. Organizational change management and attention to culture will be essential to navigating such differences. In addition, new organizational forms may be required, to blend the best of both worlds.
Asset management in this new world becomes complex, IT asset management system and fixed asset systems may need to further interface with operational asset systems, (IBM’s Maximo being a well-known example of an operational asset system, as opposed to an IT asset management system). When does a server go into which system? This blog has focused on this problem in detail previously for just the IT asset and fixed asset problem (as well as with CMDB and monitoring tools), but adding yet another class of asset systems makes the matter even more complicated.
Cisco has proposed the idea of “fog computing,” where distributed IoT devices will increase in power and storage. Given the cost and difficulty of moving large quantities of data, moving more processing power to the edge seems a likely scenario, but what does that mean concretely? It means more assets in more wiring closets and remote data centers – more to track, secure and maintain.
Ultimately, the asset reconciliation problem becomes so complex that it requires analytics. Questions such as, “Who owns that?” and “Who’s responsible?” are challenging enough, and even more so when you are uncertain of your data. Continuous consolidation and rationalization of these devices will be required for secure and efficient operations. Blazent has unique, industry-leading algorithms for solving these hard problems that are fast approaching with the Internet of Things.
While IT may be the master of asset management, evolving this function to the needs of IoT endpoints means there will be new asset classes and data-streams to aggregate.