Technical Support

Working in partnership delivering solutions

Skilled and experienced Technical Support for Operational ‘OT’ Technology networking is one of the greatest challenges facing Industry.

SOME CONTEXT TO FRAME THE CHALLENGE

• Everything cant be fixed.
• Assets cannot be made fully secure and you can’t be sure how secure they are either.
• You can’t really know how secure your digital partners are.

If you accept these ideas then the only logical outcome is to accept that your process or production system will become compromised – the only variable becomes when? Respected industry analysts Gartner have surveyed cyber security leaders and determined the following general wants;

• Balance risk, resilience, usability and price.
• Require enough visibility into what is happening.
• Gain more control–but only over what matters.

SOME FURTHER IT4A OBSERVATIONS AROUND OT

• It is relatively uncommon for OT plants, even those involved in Critial Infrastructure, to have great strength in depth with respect to matters of networking and cyber security.
• The expectation of upskilling maintenance teams and C&I engineers to a level where all bases are covered is unrealsitic.
• The administration tools and capabilities required to provide effective network administration are rarely available.
• Introducing effective monitoring, job related skills and access to highly skilled resources to supplement site is a proven solution.

It is now better to invest in monitoring, awareness, good practice and the skills to interpret the results rather than putting all your confidence and budget into products that, at best, are effective 30% of the time.

EFFECTIVE PROTECTIVE MONITORING

Before a network monitoring system can be implemented it is first necessary to identify the networked assets deployed, their ‘stage of life’ staus and any integrated sensors within each product that can be configured/reconfigured to deliver maximum monitoring benefit. A managed ethernet switch has many sensors that communicate events, notifications and alerts to third party applications using standard SNMP and SYSLOG mechanisms.

TAILORED SKILLS DEPLOYMENT

IT4A believe in delivering sustainable skills to support a production process. The approach identifies the roles that already exist within the operational team and, through collaboration, allocates cyber related responsibilities to each role.

IT4A TECHNICAL SUPPORT

To provide continuity of support as individuals change role or move away from a Company altogether IT4A can provide a bridge. Developing bespoke training based upon the as built systems and delivering to site on an annual basis ensures continuity of knowledge transfer. IT4A’s support team is on hand to support site troubleshooting when confidence of competence is lacking – either remotely of by visiting site. The approach ensures the right skills are available in the place they are most effective.