IAONA’s Modbus-IDA Group and ODVA joined by SERCOS, EtherCAT and EPSG

Magdeburg, Germany— The memorandum of understanding (MoU) that established IAONA as platform organization for IDA-Group and ODVA in 2000 was recently renewed and enlarged to include the Interest Group SERCOS (IGS), EtherCAT Technology Group (ETG), and Ethernet Powerlink Specification Group (EPSG). The newly revised MoU will be officially signed by the partner organizations at Hannover Fair on April 21 at IAONA’s exhibit, located at Stand B69, Hall 11.

IAONA’s primary mission is to pursue a common strategy for industrial Ethernet. However, the growing industrial Ethernet trend brings with it a multitude of different and partially proprietary solutions. Consequently, IAONA and its partners work to achieve developments in industrial Ethernet that can serve users and providers “commonly, homogenously and all-embracingly.” Both the IAONA Installation Guide and IAONA Handbook for Network Security bear witness to this goal.

Against this background, IAONA held an open board meeting in mid-February 2004 in Ann Arbor, MI. This gathering was open to all relevant organizations for industrial Ethernet. During the meeting, a common understanding for a future strategy was achieved by the participating organizations, including EPSG, ETG, IGS, Modbus-IDA, and ODVA. The five organizations revised the MoU, which allows them to jointly cover topics using IAONA’s platform, so they don’t have to be deal with them individually. IAONA says this helps users and providers because they don’t have to deal with so many different specifications. Topics covered within the MoU’s framework are: security aspects, cabling, use of IEEE 1588, and system aspects.

As a result, the Joint Technical Working Groups (JTWGs) of IAONA work with the partner organizations’ specifications and proposals for standards. According to the MoU, the JTWGs are open to all members of all partner organizations. The partners are also represented on IAONA’s Technical Steering Committee (TSC).

IAONA reports that it and its partners support the idea of the neutral communication platform that IAONA provides. The overall organization adds that it will become more and more useful to users and providers as implementations of industrial Ethernet become increasingly complex. IAONA says this will make it even more capable of being the driving force toward a harmonized Ethernet.

Control Engineering Daily News DeskJim Montague, news editorjmontague@reedbusiness.com

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