The Unified Namespace as the strongest architectural proposal for Industry 4.0

Jeremy Theocharis -

You are skeptical. You are skeptical of buzzwords. You are skeptical because in the past 10 years of Industry 4.0, nothing really changed. And now there are random people on the internet talking about this “Unified Namespace” or in short “UNS”. Of course, you are skeptical.

But you are also open to new concepts; otherwise, you would have never clicked on this article.

Let’s take this openness and use it to explain, in my personal opinion, one of the strongest architectural proposals for IT/OT convergence. I don’t want to sell you a dream but to equip you with the facts and the background necessary to understand the hype of the "Unified Namespace." Its biggest advantage is that it has strong roots in the traditional frameworks of IT and OT systems architecture.

  1. Chapter 1, "The Foundations of the Unified Namespace in Operational Technology", explores its integration with existing OT systems like the automation pyramid.
  2. Chapter 2, "The Rise of the Unified Namespace", traces the term's origins. It discusses influencer Walker Reynolds' somewhat imprecise definition of the UNS, the surrounding hype, common interpretations of "UNS", and employs an intriguing metaphor: likening the Unified Namespace to a News Agency in the 1980s.
  3. Finally, Chapter 3, "The Foundations of the Unified Namespace in Information Technology", examines its essential role in IT. We'll see how, regardless of your approach in IT, the path often leads to a Unified Namespace strategy

By the end of this read, you'll have a solid foundation to decide if delving deeper is worth your time.