Factories in the industrial sector have long used digital data to monitor and control production facilities. Large networked systems in factories, data centers, and commercial buildings have been pushing the edges of their digital information networks closer and closer to the physical world. Physical measurements such as temperature, pressure, proximity or light are converted into digital information for the system to process, and the calculated results are then translated into the physical actions of actual devices such as valves, fans, power supplies and indicators. Information technology (IT) networks and operational technology (OT) networks are tending to use similar techniques to streamline the flow of data across an organization.
One way to bring IT and OT closer together is to use a single underlying network to establish communication between systems. When electronics first entered the field of automation, the various distributed subsystems were specialized and defined by the hardware used. For these domain-specific hardware architectures, communication technologies optimized for specific applications are defined. Each hardware system uses a specialized bus to communicate, so it needs to be converted from the communication protocol of one hardware system to the communication protocol of another hardware system through a complex gateway.
Over time, this outdated architecture was gradually replaced by software-defined centralized architectures. In the new architecture, instead of using separate domains or functions, electronic interfaces are grouped into areas within the enterprise and connected to modern centralized computing platforms. These electronic interfaces use the now-ubiquitous Ethernet technology to transmit data to where it is needed. A single software protocol stack can use different hardware physical layers to pass information at different speeds without changing the data itself. The same Ethernet frame format is used regardless of the bandwidth of a given Ethernet link.
At the edge of the network, various sensors (temperature, pressure, light, proximity, etc.) take data from the physical world and convert it into digital information. The data information is processed and converted into the physical actions of actuators (motors, lights, fans, valves, etc.). These devices typically do not require large amounts of data, but emphasis is placed on simple wiring and easy installation.
secure
When data bits and bytes are transferred from one device to another in the line and recovered, they are provided to higher software layers in standard Ethernet packet format. The format contains the destination address, the source address, some administrative bits, and the payload. The format does not change as the physical layer changes. This means that even as more and more data is gathered for processing by computer systems, causing network speeds to change, the software layer remains the same.
This includes various security mechanisms to prevent hacking or snooping on data, and worse, interfering with the use of data by physical systems. Because Ethernet is extremely resilient, it can be used in very secure applications such as banking. Other dedicated communications technologies may have few or no cybersecurity features and must be developed from scratch and maintained. In addition, logistics must be implemented to provide these functions, which can be much more complex than the design and manufacture of hardware products. Not only does access to facilities need to be controlled, but trusted chain vulnerabilities can occur at any point in the supply chain.
Big data is used to analyze trends and provide services. Predictive maintenance, remote diagnostics, and other monitoring services require access to all data in the system, and Ethernet can provide access to the farthest reaches of industrial infrastructure. At the same time, software can manage various processes and dynamically adjust as technology changes, which complement each other.
Functional safety
Functional safety means that when a component in a system fails, the system is able to react in a predictable way, so as to safely avoid causing more problems. Different industries have different standards. But, basically, it's pretty much the same. Functional safety applies to the entire system, but system designers need to ensure that the components used support functional safety so that the entire system meets functional safety standards.
Sum up
Data can be accessed from nodes at the edge of the network and can be used to enable new intelligent forecasting services as well as asset tracking and management solutions.
System costs can be reduced by streamlining components, software design, and wiring. The gateway is no longer needed. Since multiple devices are connected to a bus via a single pair of cables, the number of switch ports used is reduced.
Risk can be reduced by using a unified interface and a sound security mechanism. IT supports unified design, software development, testing, and maintenance at all levels of OT and IT networks. A streamlined architecture and enhanced security features can help designers reduce risk and easily build functional safety systems.
