Stratus Extends Its Commitment to Industrial Automation with Always-On Infrastructure for the IIoT

Stratus Technologies, Inc., a leading provider of continuous availability solutions, announced its Stratus Always-On Infrastructure for IIoT, a solution designed for Industrial Automation applications. Providing an always-on foundation for IIoT deployments, the Stratus solution features Stratus ftServer technology with VMware vSphere 6, as well as application monitoring and OPC integration. Stratus is helping to reduce the complexity and risk that can be associated with software defined industrial automation technologies to both OT and IT. For OT organizations, the Stratus Always-On Infrastructure for IIoT delivers a more simple operational platform, a dashboard with visibility into system and application health, and continuous availability.  For IT, the solution provides a standard platform that can be integrated into existing management and security processes.

Stratus is helping to streamline and simplify the continuous availability and management of industrial applications in three ways:

1. Operational Simplicity – By consolidating traditionally disparate systems, ftServer Gen8 for VMware helps streamline the management of different devices, such as servers, management consoles and external storage, into a single solution for industrial automation teams in remote locations with limited IT resources.
2. Full Visibility – By integrating Sightline Assure, Stratus provides visibility across the full hardware and software infrastructure, enabling continuous monitoring in order to better predict performance issues in advance, and help prevent unplanned downtime and data loss.
3. Open Platform Communications – By adopting the OPC standard, the Stratus solution becomes a more integral part of the industrial automation infrastructure and interoperability with other business critical applications is further extended.

Craig Resnick, ARC Advisory Group, commented, "Industrial automation and 'always on and available' are synonymous. Manufacturers and processers live in an environment where eliminating unscheduled downtime is a top business priority, and now in a world that embraces the benefits of IIoT and IT/OT convergence, 'always on and available' extending from the plant floor to the enterprise is more important than ever. The Stratus Always-On infrastructure for IIoT, combined with its OPC UA integration for Industrial Automation connectivity, provides the industry with a proven solution that is modern, future-ready, and can address the continuous availability issues of IT /OT convergence head-on."

Keywords: Operational Technology (OT), Industrial Automation, Industrial Internet of Things (IIoT), OPC standard, IT /OT Convergence, ARC Advisory Group.