Honeywell began sending press releases about things called Forge and Connect and Connected Enterprise in 2019. I was puzzled. Then came the pandemic making contact and conversations difficult. I think this was much like initiatives from a few other former automation companies now trying to become software companies—they had some ideas and appointed some GMs, but they were feeling their way forward, as well.
I was confused again this month. There was registration for something called Honeywell Connect, and then pre-brief for Honeywell Connect (for which I never received a link) and then for Honeywell User Group (HUG). I registered for so many things, I wasn’t sure what was next. Then there’s the issue that HUG is in Orlando—and I’m tired of going to Orlando and supporting Florida.
Yesterday was Honeywell Connect—a series of announcements from the Honeywell Connected Enterprise group. The big announcement that concerns me follows. HUG follows June 19 for the process systems group. That one is live. As it stands now, I’ll be there. If you’d like to connect and give me your thoughts on using all this new technology or where AR/VR is going, ping me at [email protected].
The big news from Connect is the release of Cyber Insights for operational technology applications. Its focus is improving the availability, reliability and safety of their industrial control systems and operations. Cyber Insights is designed to integrate information from multiple OT data sources in order to provide a customer with actionable insights into their facility’s cybersecurity vulnerabilities, threats and compliance, thereby helping reduce their overall cybersecurity risks.
Cyber Insights brings a tailored approach by providing a purpose-built cybersecurity solution for OT environments and users. It is designed to offer a site-level view of a facility’s cybersecurity posture and provide insights into security events, vulnerabilities, active threats and to manage compliance. Cyber Insights can help organizations strengthen their cyber resilience and respond faster to incidents through access to critical information at the right time.
Cyber Insights is pre-configured for OT use, with already available customization options designed to address certain needs specific to different industrial environments, while being vendor agnostic so that it can deployed on Honeywell control systems as well as many other systems. It is also deployed, supported and maintained by Honeywell Cyber Care services during the applicable subscription license term to help customers maintain continuous tuning and optimization as required for any system to run in peak form.