Two Key IT Trends impacting Industrial Automation

There is a lot taking place across Industrial Automation at the moment. Two of the key information technology trends we see currently affecting our world are  thin client computing and virtualisation. We are constantly having conversations with customers who are asking, “How can we gain the benefits that are possible from these technologies within our industrial plant infrastructure?”. 

So why are customers asking these questions? Well the truth being many companies seem to have experienced the benefits available already within their existing IT infrastructure. Many offices up and down the country have workers who log into a server when they boot up their PC in the morning, with more businesses making use of virtualisation to deliver flexible computing resources.  Virtualisation allows quick scale up and down of IT infrastructure, according to customer needs and along with simultaneously delivering extra resilience and an enhanced disaster recovery plan.

All of these benefits are equally desirable within an automated plant environment. The technology is now becoming mature,  more robust and we see increased expertise across the  market on deployment of these systems. Customers seem now to have enough confidence to introduce virtualisation within their plant systems. An important point to remember - implications of failure are often much more severe in terms of damage to the business and often a direct impact on the bottom line may be risk. It is important for people running automation systems to realise that there are specific products available in the market  -  which help to stablise and leverage these technologies for the automation environment. 

These industrial products  may not necessarily have been encountered by a mainstream IT department, which is often the first port of call for the automation department looking for help who are typically using products further back in the IT development life cycle.

Our upcoming event series across the UK and Ireland “Availability Virtualised for Automation” is one of the ways we are sharing information about thin client computing and virtualisation products and concepts for the industrial automation IT market.  The event is free and bookings can be made here: http://www.industrialit.co.uk/events

Rob Dinsmore -  Product Manager, Availability Solutions