A major electric power and water utility in the American Southwest—serving one of the fastest-growing regions in the United States—recently took a strategic step forward in its cybersecurity and operations modernization journey. With the responsibility for delivering essential services to millions of residents and businesses, the utility needed to ensure secure and continuous data movement between its OT (operational technology) and IT (information technology) networks.
They knew that the hardware enforced, unidirectional flow of a data diode was necessary to secure their critical environment and ensure access to data, but their existing solution was creating more problems than it was solving.
Legacy Limitations: A Barrier to OT-IT Integration
Before engaging with OPSWAT, the utility was using a competitive data diode solution for secure data transfers from its OT environment to IT systems. This included a connector to the AVEVA PI System, a core industrial software platform used to monitor and manage infrastructure data in real time.
Unfortunately, the previous system presented multiple issues and performance bottlenecks were a constant concern. As the volume and frequency of data transmission increased, the existing solution’s limited throughput began to impact operational visibility and responsiveness. The absence of high availability capabilities also meant that any downtime—planned or unplanned—could result in data loss or operational delays, requiring manual intervention and increasing administrative overhead.
Additionally, the organization faced growing demands to expand its use cases beyond AVEVA PI, including secure file transfers, email segmentation, and centralized logging with SPLUNK. The existing solution lacked the flexibility and performance to meet these evolving needs.
A Strategic Switch to OPSWAT
To address these critical gaps, the utility turned to OPSWAT and deployed MetaDefender Optical Diode with 10G throughput in a high availability pair. This hardware-based unidirectional gateway not only met the stringent security requirements of the utility’s OT-IT segmentation strategy but also delivered the performance and resiliency needed to support real-time infrastructure monitoring.
A key component of the deployment was OPSWAT’s high-performance AVEVA PI Connector, purpose-built to ensure consistent and efficient data flows into the utility’s central PI System. This allowed operators and engineers to gain a more accurate and timely view of field-level data across power generation and water treatment systems—without compromising network segmentation policies.
In addition to enhancing AVEVA PI integration, the utility extended the use of the OPSWAT Optical Diode to support:
- Secure file transfers of logs and reports from OT to IT systems.
- Email delivery workflows with strict unidirectional controls.
- SPLUNK integration for real-time alerting and analytics across the broader infrastructure.
Results That Speak for Themselves
The utility saw a significant performance improvement over its prior system, particularly in the responsiveness and reliability of the AVEVA PI Connector. The high availability diode pair eliminated single points of failure, enabling automatic failover and minimizing the risk of downtime or data gaps.
Perhaps most importantly, the transition to OPSWAT yielded greater stability that was easier to maintain. Engineers and security teams alike were able to focus more on operations and threat prevention—and less on troubleshooting connectivity and performance issues.
OPSWAT not only met the stringent security requirements of the utility’s OT-IT segmentation strategy but also delivered the performance and resiliency needed to support real-time infrastructure monitoring.
Building a Resilient Future
By implementing the OPSWAT MetaDefender Optical Diode, this critical infrastructure provider is now better equipped to meet the increasing demands of a digitally connected utility environment. With a scalable, high-performance, and high-availability architecture in place, the organization is positioned to continue evolving—securely and efficiently—while maintaining full control over its most sensitive operational data.
The deployment represents more than a technology upgrade. It’s a foundational improvement that supports the utility’s mission to deliver reliable, safe, and secure services to the communities that depend on it—today and into the future.
Put the uncompromising security of MetaDefender Optical Diode in front of your secure network—talk to an expert today for a free demo.
