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Energy companies deploy a multitude of operational technology (OT), information technology (IT), and OT assets in their areas of business. Supervisory control and data acquisition (SCADA) systems, Open Platform Communications United Architecture (OPC UA) servers, programmable logic controllers (PLCs), Internet of Things (IoT) devices, and historians are some of the most visible OT assets used by our energy customers. These OT assets are not limited to the energy industry alone, but rather have a strong presence in oil and gas, renewables, manufacturing, automotive, and construction, among others.
OT represents the machinery, hardware, devices, sensors, and so forth that work in the background. OT assets are often purpose built, live long (sometimes for decades), communicate in custom protocols (more than 200), and are often cited as critical infrastructure because they control critical assets. Power generation plants, substations, transformers, and the electricity grid are some examples. IT, on the other hand, is responsible for providing the necessary tools for data availability, security, observability, traceability, analytics, authorized access, near-real-time situation awareness, artificial intelligence/machine learning (AI/ML), and so forth.