An Elephant in the Industrial Control Room?

There is an elephant in industrial infrastructure control room. Most of the equipment within the US infrastructure sectors is at risk of aging out, currently requiring replacement and upgrades, yet still in production use.

Which means industrial networks, endpoints, control systems and other types of specialized systems and production equipment across many industries are in drastic need of replacement or upgrade.  For water and wastewater treatment facilities, the useful life of system components is estimated to be 15-95 years old according to the American Society of Civil Engineers (ASCE) and their report “Failure to Act – The Economic Impact of Current Investment Trends in Water and Wastewater Treatment Infrastructure”

Many of the components were installed in the 1950s for most major cities, years before today’s modern networks, technical advances, application architecture, industrial protocols, cyber security risks, compliance requirements, safety regulations and other factors applied.

Subsequently, It was no surprise when, in 2012, a large, growing California metropolis proposed funding for a new power generation and water treatment plant to increase capacity and replace its aging infrastructure

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