Unified Namespace can accelerate IoT revolution in industry

How do you connect the worlds of OT and IT? One of the solutions is called Unified Namespace. Dick Klaassen from Hoppenbrouwers Techniek will tell you more about it during the seminar 'The opportunities of digitalization in the industry' on Tuesday, September 27. FHI spoke to him in the run-up to the WoTS.

By: Dimitri Reijerman


Factories face the problem that a lot of data is locked up in silos. This ensures that different types of software cannot talk to each other. There is also often a lack of structure, says Klaassen. Applying a Unified Namespace model can help companies solve this problem.

“A Unified Namespace means a universal way of data transfer and structuring within the IT and OT environment,” says Klaassen. “Until now, this exchange still takes place in as many ways as there are manufacturers. Over the past twenty years, an enormous spaghetti of communication methods has emerged within a company. This means that the Internet of Things will not really get off the ground, because we do not have a universal way to exchange information between all kinds of technology.” 

“If I were to draw a parallel, it would resemble the state of the Internet around 2000. Data was exchanged in all kinds of ways, until HTTP came along. Now we use all of that, together with HTML, to exchange information in an open manner.”
Additional protocols, such as MQTT, further help to bring order out of chaos, says Klaassen: “MQTT for data structuring is a protocol that is now available. It will ensure that the Internet of Things will take off as quickly as the Internet did twenty years ago. We'll be talking about trillions of connections later. Eventually, every sensor will come online.”

Looking at his WoTS lecture, where he will delve deeper into Unified Namespaces and MQTT, he hopes to inspire his audience: “I'm trying to plant a seed. I want to indicate that we are going to do production in a completely different way. And these techniques are inherently more secure, because we no longer have to make holes in our firewalls. But the arms race with hackers will always exist.”

Would you this lecture to attend? Register now for one free visit to the fair.