Distributed global discovery servers in operational technology infrastructure

A computing device of a processing plant in an operational technology (“OT”) infrastructure having multiple communicatively connected processing plants individually having data servers interconnected by an OT network, the computing device comprising:

• a processor;
• and
• a memory containing instructions executable by the processor to cause the computing device to:
• upon detecting a data server is connected to the OT network in a processing plant,
• collect, from the detected data server, data representing a configuration of the data server;
• and
• transmit a registration request containing the collected data to a cloud computing system via a secure connection to register the detected data server as a data source in the OT infrastructure;
• and
• receive, from the cloud computing system, a registration confirmation indicating that the configuration of the data server is stored in the cloud computing system and is discoverable by client devices at other processing plants in the OT infrastructure, thereby enabling the client devices not located in the same processing plant as the data server to discover and consume process data provided by the data server.

A method for providing a cloud-assisted global discovery service in an operational technology (“OT”) infrastructure having multiple communicatively connected processing plants individually having data servers interconnected by an OT network, the method comprising:

• upon detecting a data server in the processing plant is connected to an OT network of the processing plant,
• collecting, from the detected data server, data representing a configuration of the data server via the OT network;
• and
• transmitting a registration request containing the collected data to a cloud computing system via a secure connection to register the detected data server as a data source for the OT infrastructure;
• and
• receiving, from the cloud computing system, a registration confirmation that indicates that the configuration of the data server is stored in the cloud computing system and is discoverable by client devices at other processing plants in the OT infrastructure, thereby enabling the client devices not located in the same processing plant as the data server to discover and consume process data provided by the data server.