Jeff,

How I wish I could be in San Fransico at Cisco Live but no chance I'm afraid. So here is my twopence worth.

There are some interesting challenges in combining operational and IT environments and the challenge can come from some unexpected directions e.g. where secure zones are actually defined in terms of the assets multiple third party maintainers look after rather than on information security principles. Or maybe, as in the case of one of my clients, the same network technologies are used in control and information applications (in some cases supporting SIL 2 systems).

The key in this case is to STOP such systems from communicating except in specific and auditable ways. We are making progress and we are starting to get our heads around some of the issues and find the International Society for Automation ISA 95 / 99 models most useful in developing our thinking.

In general IT departments deal with services (some common)using an ITIL approach so the kit and software deployed will have a service wrap and agreed service levels, whereas industrial automation projects will often move from commissioning staright into maintenance. This is fine where the various systems are discrete and not shared but the ITIL approach is really needed where some infrastructure is shared if only to make sure, as a minimum, that there is effective change management and security management.

Of course whatever security solutions we put in place will have to be capable of handling the high bandwidths associated with real-time HD and 4K CCTV streams.

I look forward to seeing the output from the conference.