Industrial IT monitoring
IT/OT convergence, Industry 4.0 and increased digitization all shape the way the production floor connects
and interacts with IT. This interconnectivity makes it crucial to have a unified overview
of your entire infrastructure, whether it is IT, OT, or IIoT.
PRTG is monitoring software that brings in elements from all areas, so you can monitor the health, status and condition of machines, control systems, devices, and more across IT and OT:
- Out-of-the-box support for common industrial standards and protocols –
OPC UA, MQTT, Modbus TCP and more - Get data about the factory floor and IIoT from industrial gateways
- Monitor industrial ethernet devices in your OT environment
- Visualize your environment in dashboards that include IT, OT, and IIoT elements
- Extend the functionality of common industry solutions to provide expanded functionality
Sensors monitoring your industrial environment
- MQTT Roundtrip Sensor: Monitor the health of your MQTT implementation by measuring the message round trip time (RTT), round trip status, publisher connection time, and subscriber connection time
- MQTT Statistics Sensor: Monitor statistics for MQTT topics, such as number of incoming messages and the received payload
- MQTT Subscribe Custom Sensor: Subscribe to an MQTT topic and monitor up to ten values
- Modbus TCP Custom Sensor: Monitor your Modbus TCP server and keep an eye on peripheral devices like cooling units, power supplies, temperature, and more
- Modbus RTU Custom Sensor: Connect to a Modbus RTU server to monitor serially-connected devices
- Rittal CMC III Hardware Status: Monitor the hardware status and performance of a Rittal CMC III processing unit and all attached external Rittal sensors - to make sure that the monitoring infrastructure inside the enclosure is actually functional.
- OPC UA Server Status Sensor: Ensure that your OPC UA server is up and running by tracking the operation status, uptime, and diagnostic information.
- OPC UA Custom Sensor: Monitor up to ten values from an OPC UA server, including metrics like PLC state, device failure, battery status, error codes, and more.
- OPC UA Certificate Sensor: Monitor the OPC UA certificates in your environment and prevent certificate expiry from impacting production.
- OPC UA Notifications: Enables you to forward PRTG alerts by writing them to a predefined OPC UA tag on an OPC UA server like SCADA, DCS, or any other system that provides OPC UA server capability.
- Beckhoff IPC System Health Sensor: Monitor the health status of Beckhoff industrial PCs by watching the CPU load and temperature, available memory, mainboard temperature and RAID controller status.
Get your free white papers
White paper I
In modern industrial IT, the right teams need the right data. Our guide shows how to implement holistic monitoring that brings elements from IT, OT and IIoT into your dashboards.
White paper II
Our second guide gives you inspiration and ideas for dashboards that feature IT, OT and IIoT data – all in one place. We show you what truly convergent industrial dashboards look like!
Why monitor industrial IT?
The right teams need
the right data
Previously segregated teams now rely on each other. For example: IT teams are responsible for ensuring data generated by machines on the factory floor makes its way to the cloud, while industrial engineers or managers might need access to that data to make decisions regarding the production line. All teams need to work from the same data, but they need different views of it.
Root cause analysis
Because data is passed across several systems, all the gears are meshed together: if one doesn’t work, then everything else is impacted, too. In the case of a failure, it’s not enough to simply be alerted when the problem occurs; teams need to understand the root cause of a problem in order to prevent it from happening in the future. But to find the root cause, teams need to look across systems and interfaces.
Keep data flowing
Digitalization has made it vital to be able to collect, analyze and generate insights using data from all parts of the enterprise. Data created on the factory floor must be aggregated and sent to upstream systems, either on-premises or in the cloud, for processing. Because this data travels across OT and IT networks, it’s essential to monitor that it is flowing correctly at various interfaces and touchpoints in the infrastructure.
Minimize downtime
Knowing what is down right now is the most pressing goal when it comes to downtime. But monitoring can help prevent downtime before it happens, too. If you understand what typically fails and when, you can identify patterns and use them to take action before downtime occurs. PRTG not only shows you what is down in your infrastructure right now, but lets you analyze data over a period of time to help you see these patterns.
Reduce energy consumption
Know how much energy your machines and devices are using, so that you can analyze where to reduce consumption. Get consumption data either directly from machines with built-in consumption measurements, or through power meters using protocols like Modbus TCP. PRTG lets you gather energy consumption data from various sources in one tool where you can analyze the data and find areas where you can reduce energy usage.
Watch the watchers
Control systems (like SCADA) and execution systems (like MES) play crucial roles in OT. PRTG provides the tools to keep a close watch on the environment that these systems run in. This includes CPU load, memory, storage space, performance, related databases and more. Using SNMP, PRTG can also ensure that the systems themselves are up and running and provide alerts in the case of issues.
Ensure the security of the network
IT and OT networks must continuously be monitored for potential breaches or suspicious and unusual activity. Various techniques exist, for example Intrusion Prevention and Intrusion Defense systems, to keep track of what is generating the traffic in the network, and for what purposes. PRTG works alongside common cyber security tools to help protect your industrial environment.
Ensure data is flowing through the enterprise
Data required for analysis or processing needs to move from the factory floor to a gateway (for example), and then to an upstream target – perhaps a data center, cloud service, or an ERP system. Components that are unavailable, interfaces that are down, and bandwidth problems can all result in the data not getting to where it is supposed to go. PRTG can help you monitor data flow at critical interfaces and touchpoints in the infrastructure.
IT/OT convergence with PRTG Network Monitor
PRTG Network Monitor is a world leading IT monitoring solution combining a broad feature set
with outstanding usability and maximum flexibility.
Beyond out-of-the-box support for all classic IT standards, PRTG offers a RESTful API as well as
JSON, OPC UA, Modbus TCP and MQTT support to easily integrate shop floors, IoT devices for monitoring
environmental parameters, as well as IT devices and applications beyond common standards.
Get the data
In a modern production environment, data can be collected from IIoT sensors on the factory floor, through industrial gateways, and from the IT network. PRTG gives you many options to collect data from various components in your environment by providing support for IT standards like SNMP and NetFlow, and industry protocols and standards like OPC UA, Modbus TCP, and MQTT.
Visualize the data
PRTG lets you visualize the data you collect from your IT and OT networks in dashboards. Create views of specific areas of your infrastructure, or represent a high-level overview that includes everything. Using the user rights management for dashboards in PRTG, you can create views for specific teams – thus ensuring the right teams have access to the data they need.
Define thresholds and alarms
Using the PRTG functionality for alerts, you can set thresholds for when conditions deviate from what is considered “normal”. You can have states of “normal”, “warning” (when a machine or device has not yet failed but is indicating signs of a problem), or “down” (when there is a failure or downtime). Based on these alerts, PRTG can also notify the right teams with targeted escalation using various mechanisms, like push messages, Emails, and more.
Extend functionality of third-party tools
PRTG is designed to work with other industrial solutions. Extend the capabilities of passive monitoring tools, like Rhebo, with the active monitoring of PRTG. Or maximize cyber security monitoring and analysis by integrating PRTG and Moxa. Integrate industrial gateways like INSYS icom to get access to data about the factory floor and IIoT components. Work in conjunction with tools for monitoring retrofitted machines, like Schildknecht, to get a view on even more aspects of your infrastructure.
Clear licensing, fair pricing
Every license of PRTG includes the entire functionality without add-ons or modules. This makes licensing clear and helps to calculate your ROI. PRTG comes in two different licensing options – CAPEX-based as a perpetual license or OPEX-based as subscription model, both with the option to easily scale your monitoring with growing demands.
connecT SYSTEMHAUS
We are your reliable and qualified partner for all issues related to digitalization.
Marktstraße 45a
57078 Siegen
Germany
+49 271 488 73 - 73
GIA
Your partner for process automation and IT services.
Dönhoffstr. 39
51373 Leverkusen
Germany
+49 214 83067-0
ikt Gromnitza
Customized solutions to generate the perfect fit between your processes and software landscape.
Kirchener Str. 12
57518 Betzdorf
Germany
+49 2741 18222-0
CANCOM GmbH
Hirschmann Network Solutions
Your partner for IP-based (W)LAN solutions in industrial and infrastructural environments.
Pampuslaan 170
1382 JS Weesp, Netherlands
+31 294 46 25 67
Kriko Engineering
Recording, reporting and analysis of process data. KRIKO is your partner in the matter of process automation and in the development of customer-specific interfaces.
Zum Engelberg 20
79249 Merzhausen, Germany
+49(0)761/40078-0
Kutzschbach
Modern IT-concepts and cloud solutions for your business, automation technology and industrial monitoring.
Markham Str. 15
86720 Nördlingen, Germany
+49 9081 2503400
Metrix
Metrix uses sensing, monitoring and analytics to create business value within Industry 4.0, logistics, building maintenance and healthcare.
Laín Calvo, 16. Piso 1
09003 Burgos
Spain
+34 610 099 578
M³H²
Solutions for the synchronized recording of mixed signals like EtherCat, CAN, High Speed cameras, analog and digital signals.
Rambertweg 9
80995 Munich
Germany
+49 89 1894959-0
netmon24
As a long-term partner, netmon24 offers you customized solutions within IT, digitalization as well as IoT.
Dietkircher Str. 3
65552 Limburg an der Lahn, Germany
+49 6431 598700
PCI Industrial Automation
Consultation services in industrial automation and system integration.
9500 Meilleur St., Suite 601
Montreal, QC, H2N 2B7, Canada
514-336-0388
Process Automation Solutions
Process Automation Solutions serves customers in automotive, chemical, pharmaceutical / biotech, food & beverage, oil & gas and other industries.
More than 50 branch offices in Europe, America and Asia
SIGMA Process & Automation
Your partner for automating processes and Plant-Intelligence/MES.
Erlengrund 9
63773 Goldbach
Germany
+49 6021 4392220
Vescon Aqua GmbH
We are a leading international industrial services provider.
Heidenkampsweg 101
20097 Hamburg
Germany
+49 40 23 64 854 - 0
WDL Systems
WDL Systems is a leading source for AI, Industrial IoT and Edge Computing.
220 Chatham Business Drive
Pittsboro, NC 27312, United States
800-548-2319
xinfra
Your partner for IT and IoT monitoring services.
Wildischachenstrasse 36
5200 Brugg, Switzerland
+41 56 544 2222
Paessler named Gartner Peer Insights Customers' Choice in the category IT Infrastructure Monitoring Tools.
“Great interface, intuitive, full REST support. custom scripts, rest sensors add extra value. We have been using PRTG for
10 years now in multiple environments and use cases. it has by far the best interface and very easy to setup without prior experience.”
Dev Ops Manager, Industry: Manufacturing, Role: R&D/Product Development, Firm Size: 500M-1B USD
Success stories from our customers
Companies around the world trust PRTG when it comes to ensuring the function of their IT systems.
PRTG supports intelligent manufacturing at Bosch Rexroth
Bosch Rexroth AG develops and produces electric drives with open control systems, which form the basis for intelligent production plants and thus the basis for industry 4.0 plants. Customers from a wide variety of industries around the world can order Rexroth products in 200,000 varieties and variable batch sizes. By converting the Lohr am Main and Erbach plants to an industry 4.0 environment, production became significantly more efficient, both in terms of quality and productivity.
Network management at Quaker Houghton runs smoothly thanks to PRTG
Quaker Houghton develops and produces industrial process fluids for manufacturers of steel, aluminum, cars, aircraft, machines and industrial parts, among others. The chemical company employs 4,400 people worldwide, spread across 78 offices, 34 production locations and 35 R&D locations. The European headquarters is located in Uithoorn, North Holland. From this location, Erik Kemper, Senior Global Infrastructure Engineer, together with his two American IT colleagues, manages Quaker Houghton's global network infrastructure.
SE3 offers PRTG as a solution to monitor wastewater treatment
Founded in 2007, SE3 provides structured industrial maintenance and automation services in Yucatán and Quintana Roo, Mexico thanks to partnerships with wastewater treatment leaders in the region. With the team’s technical development, they ventured into several areas related to pumping system design, instrumentation and industrial communication systems, and becoming an INSYS icom partner since 2016.
Truma secures production, business processes, and IT with Derdack and PRTG
Just about every camper in Europe has heard of Truma. Truma was founded by Philipp Kreis in 1949 and has been offering accessories for recreational vehicles (RVs) ever since. For the past 70 years, Truma has grown into a successful international business, all the while continuing to be fully run and operated by its owners.
Get more deep-dive information here!
Would you like to discover more about industrial IT monitoring?
Then be sure to check out our inspirational blog posts and webinars.
Monitoring a production line with PRTG
This article will show you how a Biological Scientist with an IT background and an IT Network Administrator built an inexpensive, yet powerful production monitoring system with PRTG and simple sensors connected to a Raspberry PI.
Free webinar: PRTG keeping an eye on your industrial IT
Watch this free webinar to get an overview of our industry sensors like MQTT, Modbus TCP and OPC UA. Additionally, we’ll show you use cases demonstrating how these sensors can help you master your daily challenges in IT and OT monitoring.
Great industrial content at a glance
For more insight and information about PRTG in industry, take a look at our industrial resource center. Find out about use cases, sensors, latest trends and much more!
Your leading partner for the digital transformation of your IT and OT infrastructure.
Erika-Mann-Str. 69
80636 Munich
Germany