Companies around the world are looking at ways to improve operational efficiency and agility to deal with the highly volatile business environment. Technology plays a crucial role. Businesses are already exploring various digital solutions to enable automation, increase the speed of operations, and reduce costs. In recent years, much attention on digital transformation has been on information technology (IT), in the form of migrating workloads to the cloud for agility, leveraging data analytics for business insights, and using AI and machine language (ML) for automation. However, there is also a transformation of business operations through operation technology (OT), which includes Internet of Things (IoT), robotics, computer vision, etc. While IT and OT are often responsibilities of separate teams within an organisation, there is operational efficiency to be gained with the convergence of the two, through the integration of data management systems (IT) and operational systems. This integration enables data to be gathered and analysed for business and operational insights. This helps businesses to become more efficient and allows for faster decision-making.
In many cases, especially for organisations maintaining mission-critical infrastructure, IT and OT systems continue to operate on separate networks. Some industries, for example, transportation, utilities, manufacturing, mining, and the public sector, operate large-scale networks to support operational systems. Some organisations in these industries have been considering or developing a single network to support both systems. GlobalData research shows that operational efficiency, unified security, and real-time data for decision-making are the top three business objectives for integrating IT and OT networks.
A unified IT and OT network also allows for better resource utilisation, both in terms of funding and manpower. It removes the need to manage two separate networks, gives the buyer more power in negotiating with vendors, and provides the ability to support automation across IT and OT domains. Moreover, the network is becoming more complex, and it can include different transport (e.g., fibre, wireless, and satellite), campus networks (e.g., private 5G, WLAN and LAN), and a wide-area network connecting cloud environments, data centres, and campuses. Leveraging a single network for both IT and OT workloads can therefore allow for better utilisation of network resources.
However, operational systems for critical national infrastructure will have a different set of requirements from the corporate IT systems. These often include near-zero downtime, redundancy measures, low-latency requirements, and security considerations. Through techniques such as network virtualisation, traffic prioritisation, and 5G network slicing, networks are now more adaptable and can support different applications based on their performance requirements. Using observability, digital twins, and AI-enabled network automation, network performance can be further enhanced. Challenges for many enterprises to achieve network modernisation and integration of IT and OT remain. These are typically around the lack of expertise, legacy systems that can be customised and difficult to integrate, resistance between IT and operational teams, and heightened security and compliance concerns.
Organisations operating critical network infrastructure are more likely to have in-house teams to build and manage their own networks. However, with the growing use of technologies and complexity, they will have to lean on technology vendors and service providers for technical expertise, security or compliance certifications, access to partner ecosystems, and overall consulting and system integration. This means a new area of opportunity for network services providers, but this will have to be sold to customers as business outcomes, not just a network technology or solution. Service providers will need to develop strong IT/OT expertise, industry-specific knowledge, and professional services to help customers design, plan, implement, and optimise their networks.
