Modernizing Legacy OT & IT: Strategies for Upgrading Industrial Infrastructure Without Disruption

Across manufacturing, energy, water, and oil & gas, industrial operators are under pressure to modernize aging OT systems—SCADA, DCS, PLCs, HMIs, historians—as well as legacy IT environments that support them. But modernization can introduce operational risk, downtime, and cybersecurity gaps. This panel brings together industry leaders who have successfully transformed legacy environments while keeping critical operations running safely and reliably.

Experts will discuss practical approaches to phased modernization, integrating new digital capabilities with existing control systems, selecting upgrade paths, and managing cybersecurity across mixed-generation technology. Attendees will learn strategies that balance innovation with operational continuity, and how to build a modernization roadmap that delivers measurable value without disrupting plant uptime or field operations.

Key Discussion Points

• Proven methodologies for upgrading legacy OT systems without impacting production or safety

• Balancing brownfield realities with greenfield ambitions

• How to introduce analytics, cloud connectivity, and edge computing into older control environments

• Mitigating operational and cybersecurity risks during major system upgrades

• Managing OT/IT interoperability across multi-decade technology lifecycles

• Governance, change management, and workforce considerations for modernization initiatives

• Real case studies: what worked, what failed, and what others can learn