This paper from Machine Design, developed together with Siemens Digital Industries Software, sets out to respond to two questions: How, specifically, can organizations connect existing systems— some which are several decades old and use an array of outdated and incompatible communication protocols and methods—to next-generation systems so they can maximize the industrial IoT’s promised competitive advantages? Just as important: how do organizations achieve such integration quickly, cost-effectively and with little to no downtime?

Key words: Internet of Things (IoT), manufacturing automation, machine to Machine (M2M) communication, IoT platform as a service (PaaS)