Partnership bridges IT and OT worlds in mission-critical industrial environments

Lynx Software Technologies has announced a partnership with the CODESYS Group to provide a platform that can deploy industrial control automation technology on general purpose computer platforms alongside artificial intelligence (AI) / machine learning (ML), security and other application workloads.

The LYNX MOSA.ic™ for Industrial product, Lynx’s mission critical edge platform, provides virtual air gapping between the control automation and other workloads. The combination makes it possible for edge use cases that require mixed criticality workloads to be hosted on the same hardware platform.

The foundational building block in the LYNX MOSA.ic for Industrial product is the LynxSecure® Separation Kernel, which provides strong isolation of applications, deterministic real-time performance and management of critical system assets outside operating systems to increase immunity to cybersecurity attacks. In addition, Lynx has developed unique management technologies that allow mission critical edge systems to be deployed at scale and meet the unique requirements of systems that enable OT and IT convergence.

In the majority of current deployments, Information Technology (IT) and Operational Technology (OT) domains are separated by a demilitarized zone, the platform from Lynx and CODESYS can enable a software programmable logic controller (PLC), an ML/AI model, a human-machine interface (HMI) and an IoT Gateway workload to all run on the same edge system without hampering real-time performance.

“Our partnership with Lynx provides a bridge between the IT and OT worlds so industrial operators can now experience both functions coexisting on the same system while simultaneously meeting security and performance demands across every single edge workload in their mission critical industrial environments,” said Dieter Hess, co-CEO and co-founder of the CODESYS Group.

Benefits for industrial operators of the combination of technologies include: 

• Flexibility to deploy, manage and update workloads using the LynxSecure separation kernel hypervisor and its manageability features, following a consistent software lifecycle management, from the cloud to industrial endpoints
• Reduced system cost, power and footprint from the integration of multiple discrete systems into a single platform, while maintaining the real-time performance, reliability and safety demanded by OT networks
• Flexible management model of edge OT systems - devices can be managed from within the OT zone and host cloud managed and delivered workload alongside the CODESYS-based workload.

“By welcoming CODESYS into our growing industrial partner ecosystem we are able to solve an important challenge in the industry - that of enabling the software-defined world on the operational floor,” said Pavan Singh, vice president of product management, Lynx Software Technologies. “Now operators can leverage the best of new technologies developed in the information technology world while protecting and enhancing their current operations.”

• This partnership builds upon Lynx’s growing technology partner ecosystem to accelerate the realization of mission critical edge for industrial applications. Other recent news includes partnerships with Bosch Italia, Eurotech and the availability of Lynx MOSA.ic for Industrial in the Microsoft Azure marketplace.

@LynxSoftware @CODESYS_Group #Pauto