Apparatus and method for interactions with industrial equipment

A method, comprising:

• linking, by a processor, a construct with a particular automation tag from among a plurality of automation tags of a Supervisory Control and Data Acquisition (SCADA) system or a plurality of automation tags stored in a data historian system, the construct comprising a semantic construct that identifies a specific attribute value hosted by the automation tag, and the automation tag corresponding to at least one of an attribute or a plurality of attributes within a device, or a property within an object the value of which is used in the SCADA system to perform control;
• receiving a request from an application to access the automation tag by using the construct;
• translating, by the processor, the construct into an internet protocol (IP) address;
• responding at the direction of the processor to the request by routing the value of the specific attribute hosted by the automation tag to the application;
• using a first digital signature to authenticate the request;
• and
• using a second digital signature to authenticate a change or manipulation to an output of the request.