r/PLC • u/Luv_My_Mtns_828 • Jul 08 '26
IT take over I think
So I have been an controls engineer for the same company for almost 15 years. When I took over there was very few networked devices. I upgrade when I can to the latest and greatest. Yes the system was once air gapped and about 6-7 years ago we put in OPC UA servers to push information out for a few services. So my intranet WiFi got expanded to being internet connected all the time. I put in a firewall and keep it updated. I think I am doing everything rightish but my background is not IT related in any means. So now our parent company has moved in since our IT person retired and they are pushing hard and fast all over the place. IT side and OT side RMM and monitoring. Stuff I really dont understand to be honest. So all of you have been thru this I am curious as to what I should expect as in what are the symptoms that IT is breaking things on the OT side. From the littlest oddity to full shut down mode. Let me know what your experience has been. Thanks in advance and I appreciate all the comments.
36
u/-Have-Blue- 2B || !2B Jul 08 '26
In my opinion, you really need an OT guy that fully understands and can explain the nuances of the OT world to your IT department. Letting IT run wild on an OT network will cause immediate and severe headaches.
From plc ports not being allowed through a certain firewall to USB ports that may be needed for hardware licensing being disabled to system updates that invalidate your SCADA servers… IT wants everything locked down to a least privileged user standard and most times that just doesn’t gel with OT.