"IIoT has long since ceased to be the exclusive domain of Operation Technology (OT)," says Felix Kollmar, Managing Director of Cloudrail. It has long been apparent how traditional IT players are positioning themselves in this market. Cloud providers such as Amazon Web Services (AWS) or Microsoft Azure, as well as large consulting firms and IT system integrators, are just a few examples. "The challenges of digitalization are simply too great for individual companies. It will only work in close cooperation between OT and IT," says Kollmar.

The partnership between ifm and Cloudrail is also a close collaboration. Although ifm already has several cloud solutions in its portfolio, these are primarily developed for the OT target group. Cloudrail, on the other hand, has a product that bridges the gap between OT and IT with the 'Cloudrail.Box' and the associated Device Management Cloud. On the one hand, it works with professional industrial sensor and communication technology such as that from ifm, but at the same time manages to bring this data easily and quickly into classic IT platforms such as AWS, Microsoft Azure, Alibaba and others. This gives professional groups from IT, such as data scientists, software developers or IT consultants, access to valuable data from the store floor. With Cloudrail, simple IIoT installations can be realized within a few hours and without specialist knowledge from OT.

The focus on the IT target group is particularly important for ifm. "Cloudrail, with its innovative product and partner network, opens up additional new market access for us in large digitalization projects. Where our sales department has previously brought the benefits of the cloud closer to automation specialists, we are now involved in interdisciplinary projects with leading cloud providers and global consulting companies and are contributing our expertise in the field of sensor technology. This is a further and very promising entry into the IIoT market and therefore a perfect addition to our existing portfolio," says Michael Strauss, Head of Product Management Industrial Communication at ifm.

The Cloudrail solution is now available worldwide via ifm. The company also offers several starter kits that contain everything you need for your first IIoT project. One of these kits, for example, contains the 'VVB001' vibration sensor from ifm. This allows the vibrations of a machine to be recorded within a few minutes and evaluated in any cloud.