From a data networking perspective, the difficulty with the Industry 4.0 Revolution starts with geography. Factories tend to be in isolated locations away from city centers, where high-speed infrastructure is more commonly available. Remote locations impact how easily and affordably IT services can be provisioned, modified, monitored, and maintained.
A second difficulty is that some industrial processes demand low latency. Given the unavoidable problem of network latency, a distant data center cannot control a real-time process, for instance. (Instead of sending all data off to the cloud or a remote data center, edge storage sends only relevant data offsite. This creates a gateway, analyzing data locally and sending only results or summarized data to the cloud.)
A third difficulty is provisioning, monitoring, and securing a profusion of heterogeneous network-connected devices on the factory floor.
Solving Industry 4.0’s difficulties are edge computing and internet of things (IoT). Both push functionality out to the network’s edge, where work is being done or data is being collected and acted on. Network transport will be provided by low-latency technologies such as 5G and Wi-Fi 6.
That’s not to say IoT is without issues, particularly in terms of cybersecurity concerns. In a 2021 report, “The State of IoT and OT Cybersecurity in the Enterprise,” produced by Microsoft and its partner the Ponemon Institute:
Nevertheless, companies are pushing ahead with IoT, the research found. A large majority of the respondents believe that IoT and OT adoption is critical to future business success. Specifically, 68% of the respondents said senior management believes that IoT and OT are critical to supporting business innovation and other strategic goals. Some 65% of the respondents also said that senior management has made it a priority for IT and OT security practitioners to plan, develop, or deploy IoT and OT projects to advance business interests.