Mossa, Establishment of Solution Lab, MCA, MARC in Korea
Unified protocol that does not discriminate between legacy equipment
Establishing a security level that supports international standards

On September 3, Moxa held a press conference at the Westin Chosun Hotel in Sogong-dong, Seoul and announced its full-scale investment plan for the Korean Industrial Internet of Things (IIoT) market.
Consulting firm Accenture forecasts that the IIoT will create $14.2 trillion in value by 2030, and it is expected to bring about fundamental changes in all sectors, including intelligent manufacturing, intelligent energy, intelligent monitoring, and intelligent transportation.

Korea is also not unrelated to this trend. In particular, many domestic factories want to upgrade their facilities to Industry 4.0. It is only natural that the development of IIoT applications is rapidly increasing in Korea, where Ethernet infrastructure is widely established and there is a strong will to apply IIoT technology to their applications.

Mossa is an edge connectivity, industrial computing, and network infrastructure solution company that strengthens IIoT connectivity. Mossa established its Korean branch in 2014. Since the establishment of the branch, Mossa has been actively investing in the railway, transportation, power, and automation sectors in Korea. Mossa provides comprehensive solutions that integrate HW and SW, while providing immediate services to meet the needs of various customers across the IIoT value chain.

“In order to upgrade our services in Korea, we established the Technology Research Institute (Solution Lab) and Training Center (Moxa Certified Associate, MCA) in early 2018,” said Stanley Lu, General Manager of Moxa Korea. “The Solution Lab verifies the performance and quality of solutions through rigorous tests before they are delivered to customers, while the MCA provides training to help customers access Moxa’s core technologies, know-how, and application solutions more easily and friendly.” He also said that Moxa can quickly resolve customer issues through the Moxa Authorized Repair Center (MARC).


Protocol compatibility for connecting thousands of devices
The success of IIoT depends on how quickly IIoT can be implemented. Only those companies that move faster from defensive maintenance to predictive maintenance will survive the competition. Mossa helps customers effectively integrate existing operational technology (OT) and information technology (IT) systems, which are essential requirements for IIoT applications. In addition, based on Mossa's strength of interoperability between different protocols, it supports 70% of OT protocols on the market today.

As IIoT is implemented, hundreds to thousands of devices will be installed in a single factory. Therefore, the dedicated protocols of various devices must be connected to the cloud. Mossa's solution is designed with an easy architecture and helps to transmit data from devices to information systems.

Many older plants do not have Ethernet ports on their equipment. These devices each use different OT protocols and have decades of life left before they are decommissioned. Therefore, all data from industrial equipment must be collected using protocols that combine OT and IT, and then transferred to a control system on a private or public cloud platform such as Microsoft Azure, Amazon AWS, or Google Cloud. This is the only way to enable maintenance and analysis.

Another challenge for implementing IIoT is to increase interoperability between devices using different protocols. Mossa’s solution connects multiple interfaces of OT devices and translates various OT protocols into a single language. The solution also makes it easy to access data from the edge to the cloud.

In order for IIoT to be utilized well in applications, the required data must be provided quickly. Data collection, data recording and processing, and data connection require fast, efficient, and secure solutions. Mossa's IIoT gateway supports MQTT protocol and RESTful/C/Python application programming interface (API) that allows OT data from edge devices to easily communicate with IT programs on the cloud.

By integrating built-in fieldbus-based interfaces, protocols, and data acquisition techniques, you can reduce the cost and effort required to implement additional OT connectivity solutions. You can also install frequently used APIs to develop flexible and customized applications, extract useful information from raw data through big data analysis, and respond quickly in the field.
IIoT Security Solutions to Protect Your Industry
As machines become more connected to IP-based networks, cybersecurity and data protection become increasingly important issues. Many hackers are looking for ways to compromise networks with the intention of damaging systems or completely stopping production. That’s why smart factories need comprehensive and reliable cybersecurity policies and network designs that can block intrusions.

Mosa's industrial Ethernet switches and all-in-one firewall/VPN/NAT security router/switch solutions provide multi-layered defense capabilities for the entire network infrastructure. Turbo Ring self-healing technology enables rapid fault recovery in less than 20ms, minimizing downtime caused by network faults. In addition, Turbo Chain is a highly flexible redundancy technology that enables unlimited redundant network expansion and is suitable for distributed networks spanning wide areas.

When deploying security guidelines, automatic firewall systems, and devices with enhanced security features, enterprises should use a more systematic approach, such as the international standard IEC62443, to design the overall network security, including operating Internet systems and devices. Mossa, like other global leaders such as ABB and Siemens, has officially announced its compliance with the IEC62443 standard and has been developing products that meet this standard since 2016.