The Problem
One of the Oil & Gas Industry's biggest challenges is protecting the data which is flowing from UpStream OT Operational Technology to SAP IT Information Technology.
Due to the very nature of Oil & Gas operations, more often than not, the OT Operational Technology is located in geographically remote places, and a long way from the SAP Information Technology and DataCenter.
The OT Data is the most vulnerable, the most exposed to threats when it is flowing from the UpStream Sectore, the "E & P" Exploration and Production, to the SAP IT systems in the DataCenter:
The Threat:
The biggest threat to getting data from the Oil & Gas Operational Technology to the SAP Information Technology, is the threat of Cyber Attacks. The attack vector at most risk is the movement of the data, or the data on the move, the integration between the OT and the SAP IT.
In their March 2023 Report, "How to enhance the cybersecurity of operational technology environments", McKinsey and Company highlight the need for "strengthening technological foundations", and in particular, highlighting that,
"integration between OT systems and ERP systems increase the need for secure convergence between the IT and OT environments"
Courtney Schneider, in the report, "OT security incidents in 2021: Trends & Analysis," Waterfall Security Solutions, May 17, 2022, noted that,
"OT cyberattacks tend to have higher, more negative effects than those in IT do, as they can have physical consequences (for example, shutdowns, outages, leakages, and explosions). Of 64 OT cyberattacks publicly reported in 2021 (an increase of 140 percent over the number reported in 2020), approximately 35 percent had physical consequences, and the estimated damages were $140 million per incident."
Today's Legacy Approach to Integration Security
Data Security has evolved slowly during that last 30 years:
Data Encryption is not enough
The Business Demand
The Oil & Gas industry is demanding more, the Business is demanding better security of integration between OT and SAP IT.
The Digital Transformation of Information Security is Enterprise Blockchain, The Next Generation Data Integrity, Originality, Confidentiality Protection
Enterprise Blockchain, Enterprise Distributed Ledger Technology is re-imagining information security.
Enterprise Blockchain Platforms bring, out of the box, natively, a level of security which is not possible out of the box, natively, with any other commercial database product.
What is so special about the Enterprise Blockchain, (and discussed in the previous blogs, here, here, and here) is that Blockchain Distributed Ledger Technology has four special characteristics which make it information security re-imagined, and the next generation of information security, these special characteristics are:
McKinsey & Company, in their December 2023 Featured Insights Publication, gave a beautiful description of what is unique and special about Blockchain, "Blockchain is a secure database shared across a network of participants, where up-to-date information is available to all participants at the same time". If we just pause for a moment and let that sink in, and think about what that means, to Business Processes, to Collaboration, to System Resilience, we start to see what is so special about Blockchain Databases and Distributed Ledger Technology.
This means, we can have the an Enterprise Blockchain Database Tenant running at the Oil & Gas E&P OT sector and an Enterprise Blockchain Database Tenant running at the SAP DataCenter location, and the same data available in both places and protected to the highest level by the Blockchain's Hash Mechanism, Consensus Mechanism, Immutable status, and Distributed resilience.
We can now run Enterprise Blockchain Database from the Exploration and Production sector to the SAP system in the DataCenter, protecting the OT Data as it flows to the SAP IT, to a level of security protection that was not possible with the previous generation of technology:
Wrapping Up and Reference Architecture
To wrap up, a simple reminder,
The Digital Transformation of Information Security is Enterprise Blockchain
Enterprise Blockchain is the Next Generation Data Integrity, Originality, Confidentiality Protection
Enterprise Blockchain, Enterprise Distributed Ledger Technology is re-imagining information security.
SAP have got everything in place for you to do this today, and here's the thing, and now, within the SAP Partner Edge Open EcoSystem there are enabling technology Blockchain Products designed and built by SAP Experts specifically for the needs of SAP Customers to make doing Blockchain and SAP easy, and so today, you can do SAP and Blockchain, it's no longer hype, today it's real and there's nothing stopping you.
Reference Architecture Event Driven Blockchain with SAP
Here is an example of how Enterprise Blockchain can be implemented to bring next generation data integrity protection to the Oil and Gas OT to IT integrations.
The Enterprise Blockchain Database Tenant is running at the E&P Sector and at the same time, the Enterprise Blockchain Database Tenant is running at the SAP Business Technology Platform. The OT Data is written to the Enterprise Blockchain Database and the SAP S/4HANA and or SAP Industry Cloud read the data from the same Enterprise Blockchain Database.
As McKinsey & Company, in their December 2023 Featured Insights Publication, gave a beautiful description of what is unique and special about Blockchain, "Blockchain is a secure database shared across a network of participants, where up-to-date information is available to all participants at the same time".
The good news is, as we discussed in the previous blog, this is no longer hype, we can do all of this today, and now, within the SAP Partner Edge Open EcoSystem there are enabling technology Blockchain Products designed and built by SAP Experts specifically for the needs of SAP Customers to make doing Blockchain and SAP easy, and so you can do SAP and Blockchain, today it's real and there's nothing stopping you.
So what are we waiting for ? Oh yeah, more use cases, ok, that will continue in the next blog
What do you think, are the words Blockchain, Web3, Distributed Ledger Technology, starting to appear in your Company's visions and technology visions ? What use cases are you looking at ? Let's chat about it in the comments.
For now, over and out.
Andy Silvey.
Independent SAP Technical Architect and CEO of atkrypto.io
Author Bio:
Andy Silvey is a 25 years SAP Technology veteran [15 years SAP Basis and 10 years SAP Tech Arch including Tech, Integration, Security, Data from 3.1H to S/4HANA PCE on RISE and the BTP and everything in between, and former SCN Moderator and Mentor alumni].
Andy is also co-Founder of atkrypto inc, an startup whose ambition is to make Blockchain easy for Enterprise.
atkrypto.io's flagship product is the atkrypto Enterprise Blockchain Platform for SAP, and atkrypto.io is a SAP Partner Edge Open EcoSystem Partner.
The atkrypto Enterprise Blockchain Platform for SAP has been designed by SAP Independent Experts for the needs of SAP Customers and to be deployed on the SAP BTP Kyma Runtime Service and leverage native integration to SAP Products.
atkrypto Enterprise Blockchain Platform for SAP has a number of unique qualities, including being the only Blockchain software in the world which has a DataCenter version and a light mobile version which can run on Edge/IoT/Mobile devices and enables data to be written to the Blockchain at the Edge where that same Blockchain is running on a Server in the DataCenter, protecting the integrity and originality of data from the Edge to Insights. Taking Blockchain to the Data at the Edge instead of taking the Data to the Blockchain.
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