How Industrial IoT Gateways Help to Connect IT and OT

As a business owner, it’s important you don’t let your computer hardware and software become dated. Instead, what you need to do is use IoT gateways to connect them with modern technology so that your business can continue to thrive without falling behind the times. This guide takes a closer look at the benefits of IoT gateways and how they can ultimately help you to achieve this.

Merging IT and OT together can be difficult. It’s something that countless businesses have struggled with over recent years due to the large scale of the task at hand. However, it’s now much easier to connect your IT and OT than it was in the past — and this is thanks to IoT gateways.

What is an IoT Gateway?

An IoT gateway is a physical device (or piece of software) that operates as a central hub for your IoT devices. From here, the IoT gateway connects the IoT devices to each other and the cloud, enabling fast operations.

At the moment, “edge” industrial IoT gateways are popular with businesses. These are computers that sit very close to the IoT devices at the edge of a network. Usually, the edge IoT gateways are located in the same building or even the same floor as the IoT devices. From here, the edge IoT gateways can then process data locally (at the “edge”) so that only the relevant data gets dispatched to the cloud. As a result, businesses save lots of money on bandwidth and get to reduce any latency problems.

No matter which industry you currently operate in, you can get the edge IoT gateway solution that’s right for you from Things Embedded. For example, if you’re in the healthcare industry, you can get medical edge computers.

Start Connecting Your IT and OT with Industrial IoT Gateways

Currently, your business might have a lot of legacy equipment, such as old computer hardware. Naturally, this is a bit of a problem in the cloud computing era, where new technology is moving at an ultra-fast pace.

Knowing this, what you need to is start connecting your IT and OT. The best way to do this is by using an industrial IoT gateway. This is because IoT gateways enable smooth IT and OT connections. In a nutshell, they’ll share the data produced by your OT equipment (which might now be outdated) with your modern IT system and the cloud.

The way this works is that the IoT gateway connects with the OT equipment sensors (usually wirelessly) and then transmits data to the cloud from there. Think of the IoT gateway as like a huge bridge that connects multiple islands together. Without that bridge, data wouldn’t be able to travel between the islands.

Does My Business Need an Industrial IoT Gateway?

An IoT gateway (or multiple gateways) are very necessary if your business is dealing with lots of different devices with thousands of sensors constantly supplying data. For example, if you have a shop-floor that’s packed with Zigbee and Bluetooth-compatible OT devices, you can use an industrial IoT gateway to connect the data produced by them with the cloud.

By 2030, the industry market size for IoT gateways is expected to reach a huge USD$4,200 million. Clearly, the world is heading in one direction: towards the use of industrial IoT gateways. You can stay ahead of the curve and start experiencing the benefits now by implementing one into your business.

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