Blog

Field notes.

Writing on open industrial architecture: SCADA modernization, the Unified Namespace, MQTT and Sparkplug B, Industry 4.0 and 5.0, and the practical edge of industrial cybersecurity.

Your SCADA Is a Data Source, Not a Ceiling

The single architectural decision that separates a five-year replacement cycle from an operation that compounds value over time. Why legacy control belongs in the namespace, feeding the enterprise, instead of standing in its way.

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Unified Namespace, Explained for Operations Leaders

UNS without the hype. What it is, why it changes the economics of integration, and how to start without ripping anything out.

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MQTT and Sparkplug B in the Real Field

What actually breaks on intermittent links. Store-and-forward, report-by-exception, and birth and death certificates, and how to design for all of it.

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Industry 5.0 Is About People, Not Just Machines

Where the next wave puts the human back in the loop, and what that means for HMI design, alarm philosophy, and how operators actually work.

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Migrating Off Legacy SCADA Without Stopping Production

A phased cutover playbook: parallel runs, point-by-point validation, and the rollback plan you hope you never need to use.

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IEC 62443 for Teams That Have to Ship

Turning the standard into practical segmentation and zero-trust decisions instead of a binder nobody reads after the audit.

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Evaluating Industrial DataOps Middleware

How to score the modern middleware landscape on the axes that actually matter for your stack, instead of the ones on the vendor slide.

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Editor's note. These are starter drafts seeded from topics you write about. Hand me any title and I will expand it into a full article page in this same design, with proper headings, diagrams, and a working permalink. I can also wire up a real post template so new entries drop in cleanly.

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justin@justindean.io