OT/IT names the two technology worlds of an industrial company: OT (Operational Technology) covers systems that control physical processes, such as PLCs, SCADA and sensors, and IT (Information Technology) covers management systems: ERP, databases, analytics. Their convergence is the foundation of industrial digitalisation.
OT, IT and why they converge
OT prioritises availability and process safety; IT prioritises information confidentiality and integrity. They grew apart, with different protocols, lifecycles and owners, which is why production data often reaches management late and by hand. OT/IT convergence builds the bridge: standard protocols such as OPC-UA and MQTT, edge gateways and a unified data layer.
For an SME the effects are concrete: manual transcription and its errors disappear, problems become visible while they happen, and the unified data layer becomes the foundation for OEE, traceability and predictive maintenance. All of this connects existing systems rather than replacing them. See OT/IT integration.
Frequently asked questions
- What does OT mean in industry?
- OT stands for Operational Technology: the systems that control and supervise physical processes on the plant floor: PLCs, SCADA, sensors, actuators, robots. Its priority is availability and process safety, and its lifecycles are measured in decades.
- Why have OT and IT historically been separate?
- They were born with different goals, protocols and owners: OT optimises availability and physical-process safety; IT, information management. Plant networks were designed isolated and many OT devices do not expose data with IT standards, so people fill the gap copying data by hand.
- Does OT/IT integration require replacing PLCs or the ERP?
- No. The sensible approach is to connect what already exists: read data from PLCs, SCADA and sensors over standard protocols and publish it to a common data layer that the ERP and analytics tools consume. When a device does not expose its data, it is solved at the connectivity layer.
- What security risks does OT/IT convergence carry?
- Connecting the plant widens the attack surface, and an OT incident affects physical processes. Integration is therefore designed with network segmentation, authenticated access and reference frameworks such as IEC 62443, plus regulatory obligations such as the European NIS2 directive.