As presented at ARC Industry Forum and ICC 2026 · Speaking at CODESYS Tech Talk
The data-integrity model
Every measurement in a Surety system is taken once, at the device, in its native digital form. Smart transmitters, digitally enabled starters, and IO-Link sensors already carry the process value, device health, diagnostics, and configuration. We do not convert that to 4–20 mA and throw the rest away. We listen.
An edge controller at each station owns that data. It runs the control logic locally, keeps a local history, and publishes upward only what changed — report by exception — so a 48-site network moves a fraction of the traffic a polled system would, and a single-station outage stays a single-station problem.
When the network goes down, and in the field it goes down, the controller keeps running and keeps recording. When the link returns, it forwards what it stored, in order, with timestamps. The site historian never sees a gap. Nobody drives out to reconstruct a shift.
Above the edge, the data moves on open standards — OPC UA and MQTT Sparkplug B — into a single namespace that SCADA, the historian, maintenance, and the enterprise all read from. One name for every tag. One value. One place to fix it if it is wrong.
"Less hardware, more data. That is not a trade-off; it is what happens when you stop converting digital devices to analog and back."
Security you can maintain from a mile away
- The locked, alarmed enclosure is the security zone. Inside it, devices talk OPC UA to the controller without certificates, because nothing outside the enclosure can reach them. That is what IEC 62443 calls a zone, and the door is its perimeter.
- The only way out is one conduit: MQTT Sparkplug B over TLS, outbound only, from the edge controller to an on-premise broker inside the OT network. One endpoint to secure. One certificate to manage, on a device that is on the network and can be updated remotely.
- The compensating controls are physical and they are on the drawing: gate, cameras, multiple locks, a door switch that alarms to SCADA. Open the panel and the operator knows before you have the cover off.
- This is how a field system stays secure for ten years without a technician driving to every site to renew a certificate that expired on a Tuesday. It is also how IT gets what it needs — one TLS endpoint, one-way replication across the firewall, a data diode where the site warrants it — without reaching into the process.
- This is the pattern we designed for a gas transmission network for a major utility, and we build every field panel to the same pattern whether it has one station or fifty.
The same pattern, three industries
Underground dewatering, at a gold mine
Miles of underground pump stations on one small control panel each: groov RIO running CODESYS, smart transmitters through a HART gateway, Ignition Edge for local HMI and history, store-and-forward to site SCADA.
Drives and starters get their own enclosure. The control panel stays small, cool, and quiet.
IO-Link batch plant
Silo levels, valves, pushbuttons, and a signal tower on IO-Link, served as native OPC UA straight to the controller. No translation layer. Safety hardwired and off-network. Eleven spare ports for expansion without redesign.
Dozens of stations, one namespace
Edge nodes at every station publishing by exception over Sparkplug B to an on-premise broker. Three infrastructure decisions made before the first node shipped: where the broker lives, how the master server is sized, and where the boundary sits.
Built on partners we would choose again
Opto 22
Inductive Automation
Inductive Automation
groov RIO and groov EPIC edge controllers. CODESYS runtime, Ignition Edge on board, open protocols out of the box. Surety is an IIoT-Certified OptoPartner.
Inductive Automation
Inductive Automation
Inductive Automation
Ignition, Ignition Edge, and Ignition Edge Panel for HMI, history, and the single namespace above the edge. Surety is a registered Ignition integrator.
Phoenix Contact
Phoenix Contact
Phoenix Contact
Every Surety panel is built on Phoenix Contact power, terminals, and switching. One vendor, one support path, and a bay-sized panel that fits.
Codesys
Phoenix Contact
Phoenix Contact
IEC 61131-3 control logic, written in structured text and function blocks, portable across the edge hardware we use.