As a result of digitalization, the importance of data that controls the functionality of machines and systems in production is growing in manufacturing companies: Their damage or destruction can lead to unforeseen production downtime and result in high costs for troubleshooting and rectification as well as production downtime. The causes include power or hardware failures, software errors and errors in the operation of the system control. For example, an empty battery whose charge status is no longer transmitted correctly can result in the loss of all data as well as a forced break lasting several days until the error is found and the programming is restored manually.

Increasing networking increases the range of risks. Malicious code can get onto computers via USB sticks or by hacking the remote maintenance solution; production systems are connected to the office IT and accessible to cyber attacks. Ransomware, which encrypts data for the purpose of extorting ransom money, is no longer just a problem for office IT. At the end of 2018, a ransomware Trojan caused production downtime at several sites at machine manufacturer Krauss Maffei. Outdated operating systems with unpatched vulnerabilities are particularly at risk.

If the data of a control system is unusable, the company must contact the industrial PC manufacturer's technician for troubleshooting and the system manufacturer's service department to restore the data from the delivery state or the state of the last adjustment. The procedure can be shortened considerably with a precautionary complete system backup, because the data can be restored quickly and independently on the existing hardware or on a replacement product without external support and without waiting.

However, only a few companies use data backups as a preventative measure, mostly those that have already suffered a data loss. This is because creating backup copies in industrial environments is anything but trivial and differs considerably from data backup in standard IT.

Special requirements in the industry

Standard IT backup solutions generally use the logical levels of the data structure, i.e. the file level, and are tied to the access rules of the operating system. Users must select the correct version of the backup solution and check under which operating system the solution can be run, for which physical or virtual environments it is suitable and for which type of backup - file or image backup - it can be used. However, industrial IT environments are usually heterogeneous with different hardware components and operating systems - often special industrial operating systems, sometimes proprietary or hybrid systems that are not covered by standard IT solutions. In addition, each system component may require a specific procedure for securing the overall functionality.

Furthermore, the backup procedures in standard IT require the installation and configuration of the backup software in the operating system. The systems used in industry often do not allow this. It must be possible to carry out the backup procedure from an external storage unit - such as a USB stick or USB hard disk - or from a storage unit permanently installed in the hardware (CF card, SSD hard disk and others). In addition, a specialist must carry out the configuration before each start of the backup; an error during this process will result in an unrecoverable backup.

Functionality comes first

To ensure that the functionality of a control unit can be fully restored, all data from the underlying levels must be completely backed up in addition to the self-generated data.

© Waxar Data Saving Systems

In standard IT, the focus for backup and restore is on self-generated data, while the functionality of the control system plays the main role in automation. However, the relevant data has system-related gaps in standard backup procedures. They arise because data below file level, for example at the level of special system areas, remains unrecognized. The operating system blocks access to certain data areas, which are also not recorded during the backup. In addition, data is lost if the file structure is reorganized during recovery. A complete restoration of functionality is not possible in this way.

These difficulties can be avoided by directly accessing the production-relevant data carrier - hard disk, flash card, USB medium. This approach is implemented in the backup solutions of the WaxarIndustry group. The data is read and archived sector by sector, regardless of its type; the solutions work independently of the operating system and operating system versions, the hardware used or the installed constellation of operating system and software. This means that any operating system, even proprietary ones, and data from unstable hardware can be backed up. Only the memory areas that contain system-relevant data are taken into account, the empty areas are ignored. The backup can be performed either incrementally or differentially based on sector comparisons. On this basis, the software-defined state of a system can be automatically restored completely, consistently and without data loss, significantly reducing the costs of failures and downtime.

Can be operated without IT knowledge

The backup is created once from the delivery status or in freely selectable cycles when changes are made to the control data. The USB stick with the Waxar solution can be used for this - no additional backup storage medium is required. Optionally, the backup can be created on any other storage medium. The production manager can then restore the backup file in just one step, import it to another computer or replicate it on several control units. No IT knowledge is required to operate the solution; it is designed for fully automated processes and operation can be reduced to the push of a button to create a backup.

To restore, the operator stops the control unit, connects the data carrier with the solution and the data to a USB port, starts the computer and waits until it shuts down again after the restore, which takes five to 20 minutes depending on the volume of data. He then removes the storage unit from the USB port and restarts the computer. This restores the functionality of the control unit and it can continue to be used. With this procedure, the production management can also carry out updates without external support.

What is right for standard IT should be cheap for industrial IT: backup copies of data on industrial computers should be an indispensable part of security concepts for industrial systems as a preventive measure. They enable manufacturing companies to quickly restore the functionality of systems, thereby reducing downtimes and the costs of production losses.

Author:
Dr. Jurij Ivastsuk-Kienbaum is the founder and Managing Director of Waxar Data Saving Systems.

Key data of the backup solution

• System requirements Hardware:
  • Standard PC hardware architecture: hard disk, CPU, RAM memory, BIOS
  • Possibly interface to an external data carrier
  • Minimum resources: any clock frequency, memory from 256 MByte, 32-bit or 64-bit architecture
• System requirements Software: none
• All operating systems such as Windows, Unix, QNX, VxWorks, Mac, Android, Linux, specific industrial systems, hybrid systems are backed up
• Fully automatic run or manual operation
• Full backup and/or incremental or differential backup