Almost everyone agrees that the two biggest obstacles standing in the way the full deployment of The IIoT is security and standardization.
Security is the most critical issue we are facing. We are all aware of the numerous industrial attacks that are almost becoming common place. New requirements for security, privacy, identity management, and access control need to be identified and implemented.
Standardization is a must, meaning a respected cross industry standards body must be in place to ensure the many new devices from different manufactures can interoperate. No single manufacturer can go it alone.
Part of the challenge is that there are numerous efforts underway to create such standards. “Which group do you join? What standard do you pick? Who do you team with?” asks Lynne Canavan, program director for the Industrial Internet Consortium. “One of the top challenges is to consolidate and coordinate these different initiatives in order to collectively band together to solve things like security, interoperability, common architecture, etc. We aim to bring the disparate efforts out there into one public-private ecosystem, so that were marching together instead of running into each other all over the place.”
I recommend if you are planning to participate in this space you consider becoming a member of the Industrial Internet Consortium. With a compelling group of founding members that include AT&T, Cisco, GE, Intel and IBM.
The Industrial Internet Consortium (IIC) was founded in March 2014 to bring together the organizations and technologies necessary to accelerate growth of the Industrial Internet by identifying, assembling and promoting best practices. Membership includes small and large technology innovators, vertical market leaders, researchers, universities and governments. With almost 200 global members today, with new members being added frequently.
This goal of the IIC is to:
Drive innovation through the creation of new industry use cases and test beds for real-world applications;
Define and develop the reference architecture and frameworks necessary for interoperability
Influence the global development standards process for internet and industrial systems;
Facilitate open forums to share and exchange real-world ideas, practices, lessons, and insights;
Build confidence around new and innovative approaches to security.
