Why Industrial Ethernet is Gaining Momentum
Industrial Ethernet is a plant process and control specific technology, which is focused on the production techniques that are used to help make a company profitable through their manufacturing process. Over the last couple of years, Ethernet seems to have gained momentum over other limiting proprietary protocols. Industrial Ethernet environments often involve many types of unknown, hazardous environments and factors that can strongly influence the overall operation of standard Ethernet devices. In fact, Industrial Ethernet supports many crucial factors that are used when a loss of control does occur. The result could potentially cause serious disasters or even in some extreme cases, the loss of life, property or serious financial damage. In hazardous environments like oil, gas and chemical production, this can be especially true. A single issue can cost upwards of $1 million dollars a day at some companies, so it’s easy to understand why Industrial Ethernet has a more demanding focus on the potential for component failures, reliability and other problems that will need to be resolved quickly before serious loss occurs.
In a recent NetworkWorld article, Editor Jeff Caruso helps try and make some sense of this evolving momentum in the Industrial Ethernet space. He recently looked at one company’s industrial Ethernet evolution, and also reviewed the analyst firm Frost & Sullivan, as they explain the reasons behind the growth of the technology in this new sphere.
The firm explains that the process industries are trying to reduce plant-downtime by deploying a whole bunch of intelligent devices. These devices are expected to give the plant’s operators better remote control over other automation components. They will deliver information about what’s going on in the plant to business-level decision-making systems. They allow a larger plant to be managed by a smaller team. All of those devices have to communicate their data to the central management system using something, and the openness of Ethernet is compelling. Plus, it’s compelling if enterprise applications and the production process equipment both use the same network medium. Reduced cabling becomes possible.
The flexibility is interesting, too, because if the production system is connected to the plant’s intranet, information from various plants could be accessed from different places in the company, quickly and across vast distances, Frost & Sullivan says.
Read the full article HERE
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