A number of additions and enhancements to EtherNet/IP have been announced by the ODVA organization.
The organization has introduced a guidelines document, Securing EtherNet/IP™ Networks, that discusses cyber-security recommendations for automation networks, including how to determine and deploy security strategies for various network types.
“In the past, manufacturers were able to secure industrial control systems simply by controlling physical access to their automation components,” said Katherine Voss, executive director, ODVA. “Today’s demand for increased productivity requires interconnectivity through industrial Ethernet – most often EtherNet/IP . . . This document outlines how to manage risks with the implementation of processes and technology.”
Many ODVA member companies collaborated on the security guidelines. The key security concerns discussed include: Risk analysis, collaboration between IT and industrial departments, best practices for different types of industrial networks, and emerging industrial security technologies.
In other news, ODVA announced new editions to its Ethernet specifications. One is a defined energy object that will help you aggregate and view energy usage at various levels of the enterprise.
Completed by ODVA’s Energy Applications Special Interest Group, this addition defines an energy object that will report energy usage for all energy and resource types. The energy reporting methodology meets energy reporting standards defined by the Global Reporting Initiative (GRI), whose mission is to create conditions for the transparent and reliable exchange of sustainability information. ODVA’s energy object aligns with the Environmental Indicator Protocol EN3 of the G3 Sustainability Reporting Guidelines, which is the foundation of the GRI reporting framework.
The energy object lets you build a virtual “Energy Usage Tree” representing energy consumption throughout an enterprise. An electrical energy object is defined to provide electrical energy-specific data reporting capabilities and diagnostics for the electrical energy consumers and producers found within the various levels of an industrial facility. A non-electrical energy object is defined to provide unified reporting of energy consumption and production of non-electrical energy data such as natural gas, fuel oil, and steam.
If you want to see how energy objects are implemented, ODVA created an at-a-glance summary of the energy specifications available at the organization’s web site.
Other updates include:
-A Target Connection List Object: This update defines a new object that reports a device’s connection parameter values, the default connection to improve a device’s “plug and play” capability, and any additional connection targets for the dynamic creation of devices.
-EtherNet/IP Switch Device Profile: Defines a managed EtherNet/IP switch device profile to improve interoperability and interchangeability of similar switch device types.
The ODVA organization also outlines a strategic vision for an open and interoperable communication framework in the industrial sector. The white paper, Optimization of Machine Integration (OMI), describes opportunities to create additional value through simple communication between machines, and from machines to supervisory systems.
This white paper is a collaborative effort by ODVA, Sercos International and the OPC Foundation. All three organizations support a shared vision for machinery integration. ODVA envisions an interoperability framework for machinery that encompasses three domains of the industrial ecosystem – production, enterprise and power grid. This vision recognizes the value of communication in machinery control for production processes, highlighting the possibility of using machinery information, such as energy metrics and safety factors, as a shared resource and common currency across the domains critical to manufacturers.
“The diversity of automation technologies requires a new approach to simplify the integration of machines in production,” said Peter Lutz, managing director of Sercos International. “We expect substantial technical and market synergies by cooperating with the ODVA and the OPC Foundation for the benefit of users and suppliers.”
In the white paper, ODVA, Sercos, and the OPC Foundation provide an overview of an open, unified integration model for machinery communication including: machinery in the industrial ecosystem, a shared vision of machinery in the production domain, industrial use cases for OMI; and OMI in practice.
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Filed Under: Ethernet — cables • hubs • switches, CONNECTIVITY • fieldbuses • networks, Wireless • 5G and more, Wireless devices
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