Checklist

Digital Operations Integration Checklist (OT–IT)

Practical, interactive checklist to plan OT–IT integration projects and capture security, data, testing, change management, and operational readiness details. Save responses for audits, handovers, and continuous improvement.

Interactive Tool

Digital Operations Integration Checklist (OT–IT)

Use this checklist to plan and verify OT–IT integrations so they deliver reliable, secure, and maintainable data flows without disrupting production. Answer each item, add contextual notes or references, assign an owner and target date, and save the result for traceability, audits, and post-deployment review.

Who is responsible for driving this integration project and following up on outstanding items?
Planned go-live or handover date (YYYY-MM-DD or descriptive).
Have you inventoried PLCs, RTUs, edge devices, gateways, HMIs, and other OT endpoints with unique identifiers and owners?
List CMDB IDs, spreadsheets, discovery tools used, and known gaps.
Are signals, metrics, and events labeled consistently and mapped to agreed schema/data models (names, types, units, timestamps)?
Reference schema docs, example JSON payloads, and the data dictionary or contract location.
Are data producers, consumers, required fields, allowed value ranges, retention, and SLAs formally defined?
Link to data contract, retention policy, and any anonymization or PII handling rules.
Has network design been reviewed to isolate OT traffic, enforce least privilege, and avoid direct exposure of controllers to IT/Internet?
Describe VLANs, firewalls, jump hosts, DMZs, protocol proxies, and physical access controls.
Are protocol translators/gateways (e.g., OPC UA, MQTT, Modbus proxies) configured, hardened, and tested?
List gateway firmware, config locations, authentication methods, and patch status.
Have device-level controls been applied (accounts, patches where possible, secure configs, boot protections)?
Attach or reference device baselines, firmware versions, and maintenance windows.
Were performance expectations (max latency, data cadence, acceptable loss, availability) agreed between OT and IT?
List SLAs, monitoring metrics, and responsible parties for each metric.
Are telemetry, alert thresholds, logging, and log retention defined and integrated into IT/OT monitoring stacks?
Describe dashboards, alert recipients, escalation paths, and example alerts used for acceptance testing.
Are clocks synchronized (NTP/PTP) so timestamps are consistent across OT/IT systems for debugging and analytics?
List NTP/PTP servers, devices covered, and verification steps.
Is there an acceptance test plan, and clear rollback criteria and procedures to restore production if needed?
Reference test scripts, staging results, and the rollback playbook including checkpoints and verification steps.
Was the integration validated in a staging environment that adequately simulates production?
Note any fidelity gaps between staging and production and how risks are mitigated.
Are changes tracked, approved, and scheduled to minimize production impact (maintenance windows, communication plans)?
Link to change ticket IDs, approvers, and stakeholder notification lists.
Are backups of configs and critical data taken and recovery procedures tested?
Document backup locations, recovery time objectives, and recovery point objectives.
Does the integration comply with industry/regulatory requirements and internal data retention policies?
List standards/regulations (e.g., NERC CIP, FDA, GDPR) and how requirements are met.
Are device/service credentials, certificate issuance, rotation and revocation processes defined?
Reference CA, rotation cadence, and recovery steps for lost keys.
Are IR playbooks updated to include new data flows and escalation paths?
Provide links to playbooks, SOC contact, and escalation matrix.
Are runbooks, SOPs, and training materials available for on-call staff and operators?
List runbook URLs, locations, and scheduled training sessions.
Is there a timeline and owner for a post-deployment review to measure success and capture lessons?
List KPIs to track (error rate, data latency, alerts, MTTR) and who will own them.
Give a quick readiness rating based on the above items.
1.0 10.0
Select the current residual risk after mitigations.
Summarize open risks, owners, and next steps.
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