Evolution and Trends of Cloud on Industrial OT Networks

The current industrial automation landscape faces considerable challenges due to the increasing growth of Industrial Internet of Things devices, cloud services, information technology (IT)/operational technology (OT) convergence, along with evolving hyperscaler technologies, such as Kubernetes and distributed computing. This article provides an in-depth review of the existing Instrumentation Society of America (ISA)-95 Model and its current role in supporting manufacturing systems and their interactions. Additionally, it examines how emerging technologies are impacting the security, design, and management of OT networks. As existing perimeter-based models, such as ISA-95, are pushed to their limits, the concepts of zero-trust architectures, and policy-based or software-defined networks are being explored as the next generation of OT network design. This article aims to provide a high-level introduction to the concepts and disruptive technologies, and introduce the potential implementation risks and challenges of these principles within traditional IT/OT converged solutions.