SECURE CLOUD SERVICES FOR REMOTE MACHINE ACCESS

IT ALLEVIATES THE BURDEN OF SETTING UP AND PURCHASING ADDITIONAL VPN SERVERS

Remote maintenance and troubleshooting services are enabling original equipment manufacturers (OEMs) and machine builders to support their customers with greater efficiency, as well as helping them to enhance productivity. These remote services not only facilitate faster and smarter decisions but also reduce the time and cost of after-sales support and maintenance for machines and equipment.

Although using a virtual private network (VPN) to remotely access off-site industrial machines and equipment is not a new technology, OEMs and machine builders are often faced with additional challenges such as various customer privacy concerns, complex VPN settings, IP address management, and compliance with IT security standards.

To overcome these challenges, cloud-based remote connections can provide easy, secure, and flexible remote access to customers’ machines and equipment.

We will now consider two common scenarios and see how they can benefit from secure cloud-based remote connections.

SCENARIO 1: REMOTE DATA ACQUISITION

In a water treatment plant, raw water has to go through a treatment and purification process in order to produce potable water that is safe for human consumption. To achieve this, thousands of sensors are deployed to measure the quality of the water. The sensors are located at hundreds of facilities and all need to be reliably monitored. In addition to water treatment and purification, the handling and distribution of water after it is processed is equally important to ensure the water continues to be safe for human consumption.