The necessity of examined and confirmed community architectures
Many industrial operations depend on networks supplied to them by their automation distributors. These default networks usually concentrate on the rapid, localized wants of particular tools or processes. While they might be good at their supposed operate, they steadily fall quick when addressing the broader challenges of scale, safety, and innovation in fashionable industrial environments. Such networks could not constantly provide the extent of cybersecurity wanted to guard all the operations and might also hinder fast adaptation to altering enterprise wants, incorporate new technological developments, or provide the extent of efficiency required for crucial {industry} initiatives reminiscent of utilities grid modernization or in manufacturing Industry 4.0 initiatives, together with AI.
Delaying modernization will increase the chance of great enterprise disruption and lack of market share to extra nimble opponents. For instance, in a survey, Oxford Economics estimates that the complete yearly price of downtime for the Global 2000 corporations is $400 billion, highlighting the significance of scalability, resiliency, and cybersecurity for contemporary digital operations which are driving organizations to modernize their networking infrastructure.
What makes industrial community design difficult
And but, community modernization for key {industry} use instances isn’t with out its challenges. While navigating their modernization journey, industries want to deal with potential areas for optimization, together with incorporating the wants of each IT and OT groups, new abilities studying processes, and sturdy technical designs that guarantee peak efficiency and seamless operations for mission crucial processes. Reducing danger, standardizing, and decreasing complexity is crucial to maximise this funding and pace time to worth in modernizing networks.
While sharing some similarities with campus networks, industrial networks possess distinctive necessities and constraints that distinguish them. Industrial networks must function reliably guaranteeing excessive availability in settings that contain excessive temperatures, excessive humidity, mud, vibration, and electromagnetic interference (EMI). Industrial operations demand stringent community efficiency, together with ultra-low latency, deterministic knowledge supply, and excessive reliability, to make sure seamless and protected operation of crucial processes. Industrial networks should additionally shield operations as they’re more and more focused by refined cyberattacks. Moreover, these networks should have the ability to work with a mixture of legacy programs and fashionable gadgets operating a number of particular industrial communications protocols.
Figure 1: Sample validated community and safety design for manufacturing
For these causes, and since industrial operations are crucial income producers for organizations, it’s vital that designing, deploying, and securing industrial networks is finished with examined and confirmed architectures that Cisco Industrial IoT CVDs present.
The worth of Cisco Validated Designs
Indeed, a novel a part of Cisco’s industrial portfolio are Cisco Validated Designs (CVDs). CVDs for Industrial IoT present pre-tested and confirmed options that may assist organizations navigate these challenges. CVDs assist each IT and OT groups construct abilities to allow them to take possession of their community and construct superior capabilities with out concern of integration complexities or efficiency surprises. Today, we’ve a library of over 50 documented designs and architectures overlaying a variety of sectors, together with manufacturing, energy and water utilities, mining, ports and terminals, roadways and intersections, and public transportation.
Andrew Blair, the lead telecoms engineer for ScottishPower Renewables, defined the significance of a validated design: “The offshore environment is a very unique place with very unique challenges. We need a tried and tested network infrastructure that covers all elements of our operations and maintenance and provides a secure way for those elements to communicate. And that’s exactly what Cisco developed with us for the Cisco Validated Design.”
CVDs present clients with a trusted basis for constructing sturdy, environment friendly, and safe community options that meet their industry-specific efficiency and enterprise wants and embody joint testing with key automation software supplier options to make sure efficiency in response to design. Thus, CVDs scale back programs integration time and price, guarantee ecosystem interoperability, speed up deployment occasions, and create a versatile basis for the longer term.
- Establish belief: CVDs present clients with the reassurance that the options are backed by in depth testing, have been confirmed to indicate leads to manufacturing deployments globally, and are developed, validated, and totally supported by Cisco specialists
- Follow a constant method: CVDs outline standardized architectures based mostly on confirmed Cisco enterprise and industrial networking, administration, and safety portfolios. By leveraging these designs, with their clear tips and finest practices, clients can scale back the chance of sudden failures and downtimes
- Tailored to industries: CVDs cowl practically all industrial sectors together with manufacturing, utilities, roadways and intersections, mining, oil & fuel, and extra. And embody all particular networking, administration, and safety concerns tailor-made to every sector’s distinctive wants
- Kept updated: Cisco often updates CVDs to include the newest applied sciences, safety enhancements, and {industry} requirements, guaranteeing clients have entry to essentially the most present and related options
- Accelerate supply: By following CVDs, clients can streamline their deployment processes, decreasing the time, sources, and expense wanted to implement complicated industrial networks
- Customizable: CVDs allow clients to implement tailor-made options that align with their distinctive operational necessities, even whereas offering a normal strong basis.
- Facilitate IT/OT partnership: CVDs assist create a collaborative surroundings between IT and OT, enabling extra streamlined and safe IT operations, whereas offering OT with examined, repeatable deployments.
Partner with Cisco to make your industrial networks future-ready
By leveraging Cisco Validated Designs, organizations can speed up their industrial digital transformation journey. CVDs assist streamline community design, scale back deployment danger, and enhance total operational efficiency and resiliency. From knowledge facilities and cloud to distant industrial websites, Cisco Validated Designs present a strong basis for constructing dependable, safe, and scalable networks. For additional assist, flick through a library of our industrial CVDs, or schedule a free, no-obligation session with a Cisco industrial professional, and we’ll attain out to you.
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