Modernize OT with Data Streaming, Kafka, MQTT, and OPC-UA to replace legacy middleware, enabling real-time data + scalable cloud integration.

Operational Technology (OT) has traditionally relied on legacy middleware to connect industrial systems, manage data flows, and integrate with enterprise IT. However, these monolithic, proprietary, and expensive middleware solutions struggle to keep up with real-time, scalable, and cloud-native architectures.

Just as mainframe offloading modernized enterprise IT, offloading and replacing legacy OT middleware is the next wave of digital transformation. Companies are shifting from vendor-locked, heavyweight OT middleware to real-time, event-driven architectures using Apache Kafka and Apache Flink, enabling cost efficiency, agility, and seamless edge-to-cloud integration.

This blog explores why and how organizations are replacing traditional OT middleware with data streaming, the benefits of this shift, and architectural patterns for hybrid and edge deployments.

Why Replace Legacy OT Middleware?

Industrial environments have long relied on OT middleware like OSIsoft PI, proprietary SCADA systems, and industry-specific data buses. These solutions were designed for polling-based communication, siloed data storage, and batch integration. But ...