Ethernet for automation

Get network infrastructure help, choose the right Ethernet protocol, get along with IT, and integrate. This Control Engineering July print and digital edition article integrates five online articles offering industrial Ethernet advice; link to each article here.

By Mark T. Hoske July 15, 2014

Get network infrastructure help, choose the right Ethernet protocol, get along with IT, and integrate. The Control Engineering July print and digital edition article integrates five online articles offering industrial Ethernet advice; link to each article in this posting to improve your next industrial Ethernet implementation.

Most used Ethernet protocols

Table provides governing organizations and websites for the most-used Ethernet protocols among 200 respondents to the Control Engineering Mobility, Ethernet, and Wireless Study, November 2013. See also bar chart showing 16 protocols. 

Industrial network assessments

Tips and advice: Is your legacy industrial network infrastructure ready for Ethernet, wireless, mobility, and other demands of today and tomorrow? Take this 4-question assessment, see 8 cabling issues, heed 3 implementation steps, avoid these pitfalls, and get help, if needed.

EtherCAT: Ethernet for automation, best practices

Integrating Ethernet into automation can start at the lowest levels, continue through process control level for controller-to-controller networking, on to the enterprise network level for SCADA and reporting. Ethernet can be the only network used to conduct the business of manufacturing.

EtherNet/IP: Ethernet for automation

In deploying industrial Ethernet, plant engineers and IT departments should use an Ethernet solution designed and established to connect across applications and from the end customer’s IT infrastructure down to assets on the factory floor. EtherNet/IP delivers the real-time performance, resiliency, and security of proven, but technically mature, fieldbus solutions, with the bandwidth, open connectivity, and future-proof adaptability of standard Ethernet, ODVA explains.

Profinet: Mediate the rift between control engineering and IT 

Control engineers need to know that IT is not the enemy, and IT needs to know that Ethernet on the plant floor is not Ethernet in the office.

– Edited by Mark T. Hoske, content manager, CFE Media, Control Engineering, mhoske@cfemedia.com.

ONLINE extra

Below link to the full-length version of each industrial Ethernet article referenced above.


Author Bio: Mark Hoske has been Control Engineering editor/content manager since 1994 and in a leadership role since 1999, covering all major areas: control systems, networking and information systems, control equipment and energy, and system integration, everything that comprises or facilitates the control loop. He has been writing about technology since 1987, writing professionally since 1982, and has a Bachelor of Science in Journalism degree from UW-Madison.