Operational technology (OT) is hardware and software that detects or causes a change, through the direct monitoring and/or control of industrial equipment, assets, processes and events.
Embedded Systems are also included in the sphere of operational technology (e.g. smart instrumentation), along with a large subset of scientific data acquisition, control, and computing devices.
OT systems can be required to control valves, engines, conveyors and other machines to regulate various process values, such as temperature, pressure, flow, and to monitor them to prevent hazardous conditions.
[2] Initially the term was applied to power utility control systems, but over time was adopted by other industrial sectors and used in combination with IoT.
[3] A principal driver of the adoption of the term was that the nature of operational technology platforms had evolved from bespoke proprietary systems to complex software portfolios that rely on IT infrastructure.
OT has different priorities and a different infrastructure to protect when compared with IT; typically IT systems are designed around 'Confidentiality, Integrity, Availability' (i.e. keep information safe and correct before allowing a user to access it) whereas OT systems require 'realtime control and functionality change flexibility, availability, integrity, confidentiality' to operate effectively (i.e. present the user with information wherever possible and worry about correctness or confidentiality after).
It is crucial for the companies to build close cooperation between IT and OT departments, resulting in increased effectiveness in many areas of OT and IT systems alike (such as change management, incident management and security standards) [12] [13] A typical restriction is the refusal to allow OT systems to perform safety functions (particularly in the nuclear environment), instead relying on hard-wired control systems to perform such functions; this decision stems from the widely recognized issue with substantiating software (e.g. code may perform marginally differently once compiled).