Gartner defines cyber-physical systems (CPS) protection platforms as products that discover, categorize, map and protect CPS in production or mission-critical environments outside of enterprise IT. They do so by analyzing or interacting with industrial/industry-specific protocols and operational network traffic. They understand physical process asset behavior and do not interfere with CPS operations. They can be delivered from the cloud, on-premises or in a hybrid form. Gartner defines CPS as engineered systems that orchestrate sensing, computation, control, networking and analytics to interact with the physical world (including humans). When secure, they enable safe, real-time, reliable, resilient and adaptable performance.
Network automation platforms are products that automate and orchestrate multiple vendors’ network functionality. These platforms support a broad range of capabilities including provisioning, deprovisioning, orchestration, troubleshooting, operations, workflow, configuration management, event-driven automation, validation and reporting. These platforms are well-suited to add value on top of existing point network automation tools by orchestrating end-to-end network workflows across existing automation tools. Network automation platforms interact directly with network devices, other automation and orchestration tools, network management systems/controllers, and/or network services. These platforms increase agility and efficiency of network infrastructure while lowering costs; reducing the amount of manual human errors; and improving compliance with required rules, regulations and laws.