The future of manufacturing won’t be built on legacy systems. Unite OT and IT through cloud-native IIoT to unlock intelligent operations, real-time insight, and limitless innovation.
Introduction
Despite the staggering pace of innovation in industrial automation, Operational Technology (OT) remains decades behind Information Technology (IT). This creates a strange paradox: factories filled with cutting-edge machinery still rely on proprietary, outdated databases- many designed long before the cloud became standard.
When it comes to data strategy, manufacturing often feels frozen in time.
While the rest of the enterprise – ERP, CRM, LIMS, HRMS – has seamlessly transitioned to the cloud, OT continues to operate in a parallel universe. It clings to on-premise solutions, maintaining legacy data silos. The debate in OT still revolves around “cloud vs. on-prem”, a question IT resolved years ago. Ironically, many industrial leaders don’t even realize that their enterprise systems are already cloud-native. OT moving in the same direction shouldn’t require philosophical debate, it should be a foregone conclusion.
But this isn’t just a technology issue.
It’s an organizational one.
The real barrier: Organizational silos
What’s often labeled as “IT/OT integration” is, at its core, a challenge of integrating Engineering with IT.
Engineering teams remain focused on keeping legacy systems operational, often spending significant budgets on patchwork upgrades and bolted-on gateways just to preserve outdated historians. These efforts only reinforce data silos and tether businesses to obsolete, proprietary formats.
Meanwhile, CIOs and Chief Digital Officers – tasked with delivering enterprise-wide digital transformation – often find themselves sidelined when it comes to OT strategy.
This disconnection has slowed progress for years.
But the tides are beginning to turn.
Winds of change in OT
We’re beginning to see real momentum across the industry. Here are three signs that change is underway:
1. OT data lake strategies are taking shape
We’re beginning to see real momentum across the industry. Here are three signs that change is underway:
2. Technology future-proofing through open data
The shift away from proprietary formats toward open big-data models is accelerating. This is foundational for AI readiness, enterprise analytics, and cross-functional agility.
3. Cloud strategies are (finally) including OT
True cloud adoption goes beyond hosting legacy historians in virtual machines. It means rethinking how OT data is collected, contextualized, and connected – natively and at scale.
So what should organizations actually do?
If you’re serious about transforming OT and integrating it into your digital enterprise, here’s a practical two-step framework:
Step 1: Choose a native IIoT platform
Look for a cloud-native tool specifically built for industrial data, not just storage. It should support contextualized, real-time data lakes optimized for scalable analytics and industrial intelligence.
Step 2: Use a needs matrix to guide evaluation
Not all platforms are created equal. Create a decision matrix to prioritize features based on your operational goals. Here are some essential capabilities to include:
- Open, non-proprietary big data storage formats
- Flexible ingestion (IoT, MQTT, OPC UA, CSV, ODBC, ERP connectors, etc.)
- Tiered data integrity and reliability controls
- Format transformation capabilities
- Support for diverse data types (Boolean, Integer, Float, GPS, etc.)
- No-code data enrichment (asset hierarchies, formulas, what-if logic)
- Data pipelines for import/export with enterprise systems
- Eventing, alerting, and alarming engine
- Robust APIs (read/write)
- Enterprise-grade security and access control
This isn’t a wishlist, it’s the baseline for future-ready IT/OT integration.
Final thoughts
IT/OT integration isn’t just about bridging technologies, it’s about bridging departments, strategies, and mindsets. The manufacturers who succeed will be those who challenge outdated models, align IT and engineering, and adopt platforms built for the future – not patched from the past.
The time to modernize OT is now. Not with bolt-ons and quick fixes, but with unified, cloud-native strategies that unlock the full potential of your industrial data.
Bakhtiar H. Wain has over 30+ years of outstanding leadership experience. From the very beginning, his vision has been to establish an organization that leads the way in industrial automation and system integration on a global level.
