Most plants are running production on infrastructure nobody wants to touch. Somebody installed it years ago, that person is long gone, and the standing rule is to leave it alone so it keeps working.

In this episode, Dino sits down with Jeff Slapp, cofounder, CTO and head of produduct development at SteelDome, to talk about what it would take to change that.

Jeff has spent almost 30 years building and running data centers, starting with VMware back in 1998, and he admits that until recently he couldn't have properly defined OT, even though control systems, safety systems, and fire suppression were around him the entire time.

They dig into why so many manufacturers still have hundreds of standalone HMIs, why a capital project is the real moment to think about security, and why IT/OT convergence rarely shows up in practice the way everyone talks about it. Jeff also walks through what it means to stand up a full production platform, complete with secure remote access, in about 90 seconds instead of nine months.

They close on the reality that this is a people problem more than a technology problem, and why AI on the plant floor will only be as good as the foundation it runs on.

Chapters:

• (00:00:00) If technology is not saving time, money, or mistakes, what is the point?
• (00:01:12) Jeff Slapp's 30-year journey from early VMware to co-founding SteelDome
• (00:04:35) What a universal infrastructure operating system means for the plant
• (00:06:24) An IT veteran admits OT was around him the whole time, and he never saw it
• (00:10:03) Legacy plants, standalone HMIs, and the "nobody touches it" problem
• (00:13:22) Kasm and secure application delivery: the missing third layer
• (00:18:04) Time to value: a full production platform in 90 seconds, not nine months
• (00:21:56) Democratizing infrastructure and where AI meets industrial security
• (00:25:14) Secure by design: build cybersecurity into the capital project
• (00:28:38) Asset inventory gaps, the IT/OT convergence myth, and closing thoughts

Links And Resources:

• SteelDome Website
• Jeffrey Slapp on LinkedIn
• Want to Sponsor an episode or be a Guest? Reach out here.
• Industrial Cybersecurity Insider on LinkedIn
• Cybersecurity & Digital Safety on LinkedIn
• BW Design Group Cybersecurity
• Dino Busalachi on LinkedIn
• Craig Duckworth on LinkedIn

Thanks so much for joining us this week. Want to subscribe to Industrial Cybersecurity Insider? Have some feedback you’d like to share? Connect with us on Spotify, Apple Podcasts, and YouTube to leave us a review!