Protect assets from a possible accident it is absolutely important. But security – or rather risk management – is always, inevitably, a matter of probability. In other words, you must always be ready to handle the unfortunate, improbable, but not impossible risk of something going wrong.
The theme of business continuity it then takes on a dual value in the manufacturing sector. On the one hand there is clearly the continuity of the "thinking engine" of the company - that IT component that is present in all companies. On the other side there is the specific issue of so-called business continuity, i.e. non-interruption (or recovery in a short time) of operations, of production activities.
The value of business continuity
During the famous Wanna Cry attacks, companies from various sectors suffered enormous damage because they simply were not able to restart quickly. In some industries, a single hour of downtime can be worth hundreds of thousands of dollars.
When it comes to “business continuity” you face a theme which is – if possible – even more complex with respect to the continuity of IT departments. In production there are often hundreds, if not thousands, of assets governed by some form of intelligence: CPUs running firmware and software-driven applications. With the advent of the Industrial IOT, even sensors are now becoming intelligent assets, with all the pros and cons of the case.
The question is: in case of failure, it is necessary to restore not only the hardware, but also the software component. Which companies keep an orderly database in which they have the list of all assets and related firmware, with a log of all changes and updates made over the course of their sometimes decades-long life? The answer is: few. And in these few, rare cases of conscientious companies, where are these versions of firmware and software stored? If it weren't true, it might be laughable to think that in some cases the "hidden treasure" is found on a floppy disk. Or in a CD-Rom, of course, but kept by the former department head who knows where.
Yet the timeliness of a restart also depends on these "small" details. Details that can slow down recovery operations by hours and lead to very high damage.
Manage software versions and changes automatically
This is why we at ServiTecno advise you to equip yourself with a structured system that takes care of all this, allowing you to secure your assets and be ready to start again even in the worst case.
MDT AutoSave is a tool that allows you to protect the intellectual property of the application. Autosave saves a copy of each program revision in a central repository: a safe place, a safe for storing folders and application backups which can be accessed via a flexible privilege system.
Ma it also allows you to detect unscheduled changes that are made on different systems and devices. It's important be able to compare the last saved and validated copy of the program with the physically running one on each device to identify any differences. If differences are found, the appropriate people are notified and variation management begins.
Finally, allows you to quickly recover from unauthorized changes. With an archive of all program revisions, you can quickly restore the last approved program after an unauthorized change.