The Industrial Internet Consortium (IIC) and the OpenFog Consortium (OpenFog) this week announced that they finalized the details to merge into a single entity.
Founded in March 2014 and focused on the industrial Internet of things (IIoT), the IIC last year published best practices for securing industrial endpoints, and also developed a new IoT Security Maturity Model, building on its own security framework and reference architecture.
OpenFog was established with a focus on accelerating the adoption of fog computing, as well as to address challenges associated with IoT, 5G and AI applications.
Effective immediately, the two large and influential international consortia in IIoT, fog and edge computing will work together under the IIC umbrella to drive the momentum of the industrial Internet. The first formal meeting of the unified organization will be held on February 11-14.
The IIC, now incorporating OpenFog, will also focus on developing and promoting industry guidance and best practices for fog and edge computing.
OpenFog members are joining the IIC at a time when their complementary areas of technology are emerging in the mainstream.
The unified organization also announced that the IIC Steering Committee, which guides the strategic direction of the organization, has elected two OpenFog principals, namely Ron Zahavi, Chief Strategist for IoT standards at Microsoft’s Azure IoT, and Mung Chiang, the John A. Edwardson Dean of the College of Engineering at Purdue University.
“We are looking forward to our continued work at the IIC strengthened with the addition of OpenFog. The combined organization will cover the edge to cloud continuum and leverage the international diversity of its members, regional committees and testbeds,” Zahavi said.
Related: Industrial Internet Consortium Develops New IoT Security Maturity Model
Related: IIC Publishes Best Practices for Securing Industrial Endpoints
Ionut Arghire is an international correspondent for SecurityWeek.
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