Operational Technology (OT) vs Information Technology (IT)

OT and IT: What’s the Difference?

Information Technology (IT)

Information Technology (IT) is a familiar concept to most modern office workplaces encompassing the products and networks providing data-centric computing, supporting various business functions such as finance, personnel, management and administration. This has grown to being fundamental to corporations large and small, and continues to rapidly develop in scale and capability.

Operational Technology (OT)

By contrast, Operational Technology (OT) is understood by utilities, transport, manufacturing and other industrial sectors, as encompassing an array of systems engineering, event monitoring and process control to facilitate operations. Historically, the technologies and products used to implement the required infrastructure have been bespoke and separate from other corporate systems.

The growth of standardisation

With the explosion of computing devices, the internet and communications generally, the underlying IT hardware and software have become ubiquitous and standardised. The majority of businesses now deploy products and networks which are interchangeable with most other global corporations, bringing overall costs down, increasing ease-of-use and enabling global inter-operations.

In recent years, there has been a trend to capitalise on these developments by seeking to replace old OT bespoke systems with widely available and deployed IT products.   

The problem with convergence

Despite the advantages brought by a move to using IT technologies to fulfil Operational infrastructure needs, there are some draw-backs. 

Although no-one wants systems to fail, and high performance is often a key requirement, in traditional OT systems, there is an emphasis on availability, reliability and ‘mission-critical’ operations, dictating deterministic technologies which standard IT products are not designed to provide. The packet-oriented ‘best-efforts’ nature of TCP/IP networking solutions is not sufficient to provide the performance required. Some operational systems have specific timing requirements, utilising PDH and SDH TDM-based technologies to deliver signalling and tele-protection information. 

For years, ‘security’ against ‘remote attacks’ was not an issue, because most OT systems were regionally based and not connected to the wider world. And even those with remote monitoring and control tended to use bespoke equipment which was not widely understood or utilised by non-specialists. With a move to going ‘on-line’, and utilising ‘standard’ IT equipment to fulfil OT requirements, this is no longer necessarily the case. Which brings the possibility of outages due to system or denial of service attacks. ‘Cyber-security’ in recent years has needed to become part of the considerations for OT infrastructure, learning from the experiences of threats to IT systems and ‘denial-of-service’ attacks. 

And whilst modern IT communications bring gigabit data bandwidths, OT data needs have remained modest, often to fulfil the unchanged monitoring requirements for an enormous existing deployed network of slow-speed kilobit data devices, such as pumps, valves and actuators. 

In short, the needs and desires of businesses for computing devices, networking systems and global communications to provide ever-increasing bandwidth and application support continues to diverge from the requirements of industrial operations, requiring availability, compatibility and mission-critical performance.  

Future trends

Whilst vendors of networks, computing and communications continue to develop advanced technologies to meet the growing needs of IT for businesses, the desired ‘convergence’ to replace OT systems continues to be a work-in-progress.

OT systems tend to be built with longevity as a priority over cost of ownership, due to the challenges of replacement once in continuous operation. Whereas IT products are often ‘written down’ and replaced over a much shorter timescale, with a view to taking advantage of continuous developments to provide higher performance and productivity.

Consequently, technologies that are considered ‘legacy’ by IT professionals continue to be maintained and even further deployed as trusted and proven OT systems to fulfil operational needs. 

Your operational systems requirements

@YellowsBestLtd would like to know your infrastructure goals, deployment experiences and maintenance challenges and how we may assist you to fulfil your OT and IT requirements, for both new and existing operational systems. We look forward to understanding your needs for technical support, solutions sourcing, repair services and equipment spares.

PC Troubleshooting Project

Stop Code: PROCESS1 INITIALIZATION FAILED

As a result of a PC replacement and upgrade project for Action for Asperger’s, we were presented with a seemingly serviceable Dell Optiplex 755 machine but suffering from a critical failure on power-up, meaning that the computer was unable to boot into windows, preventing use and severely limiting the diagnostics and configuration options.

PC restart

The first step following a reboot was an automatic ‘startup repair’, however, this didn’t result in a fix:

Startup Repair

Rebooting again and selecting F2 during the initial boot-up screen:

Boot Up

enabled a look at the system information, which indicated that the PC hardware was fine.

System info
Processor info
Memory info

As an extra measure, the internals of the computer were briefly examined, ‘reseating’ components including the video board, memory chips and hard disk and then the system test run to verify all was well.

Internal
Test

It was concluded therefore that the PC hardware was not the cause of the difficulties, and that the Windows installation was severely compromised. 

From the bootup, troubleshooting was selected

Choose an option

From the ‘advanced options’, the Command Prompt was accessed.

Advanced options

Using these commands:

DISKPART

SEL DISK 0

LIST VOL

It was possible to view and confirm the drives and their assigned letters.

Diskpart

Extra information was provided using this command:

wmic logicaldisk list brief

Progress was further hampered by the internal DVD/CD drive not being recognised on boot-up, in its place an external DVD drive was connected.

Rebooting and pressing F12 on power up enabled the adjustment of the Boot priority, selecting the DVD drive first.

A copy of the Boot Repair Tool by yannubuntu was next downloaded and a boot-repair-disk created

This was run from boot and gave encouraging results:

Boot Repair Disk

Alas, these steps hadn’t cured the problems, now a further critical error message was displayed:

Recovery

Consequently, using the Microsoft USB/DVD Download Tool, a Windows 10 install disk was created (confusingly the site specifies Windows 7, but it works fine for Windows 10)

This was booted and the appropriate selections made for a fresh installation of Windows 10:

Windows Setup
Windows Install now
Windows type of installation
Windows operating system selection
Activate Windows
Applicable notices and licence terms
Partition choice

At this point, it was found necessary to delete the old windows partition, extend a different partition and create a new partition in order to be able to commence the windows installation.

Partition selection

It did however then allow the installation of Windows onto the other partition, meaning that two bootable volumes were created. Might be useful for future upgrades or troubleshooting.

Choose OS

Just the straightforward matter left of completing the user configuration of the operating system ready for use. 

Choose region

All done, pleasing to conclude that the critical issues with this PC could be resolved through software corrections alone! 

@YellowsBestLtd provides professional Management Services for Business Development activities and Enterprise Support of Infrastructure. We source Solutions for Sustainable Systems maintenance, equipment Technologies and telecoms and other Products to enhance operations.

We’re always keen provide whatever is needed, so please let us know anything you require.

Three years milestone

Three years completed; onward in our fourth year!

@YellowsBestLtd has now reached the significant milestone of completing three years of trading; something often useful to be able to state when qualifying for opportunities and registering with business customers.

Our aim continues to be “Keeping Customers Operational”; understanding requirements and fulfilling them by providing a range of management services and solutions, including:

  • consultancy, such as business development planning3_years_services
  • technical support, e.g. day-rate engineering, NMS assistance
  • systems supply, including legacy IT servers / workstations
  • spares for infrastructure, in particular telecoms and CCTV cameras
  • repairs at module and component level, e.g. LED displayboards
  • value recovery through reverse logistics, resale and recycling

As we move forward in year four, we’d very much like to discover what else to provide to our existing Customers, as well as what would be of interest to potential clients. We’re always keen to enhance our range of #business services, increase the #enterprise infrastructure we support and expand our mix of #sustainable solutions we offer for supply and maintenance of new and legacy #technologies and products.

Please get in touch to discuss your challenges; whether you’re implementing new systems or maintaining existing infrastructure to serve your operational business needs. We look forward to hearing from you.