Archive for February 2015
PROFINET vs EtherNet/IP
First, a disclaimer, and no surprise: I may be slightly biased in favor of PROFINET. That said, I believe the following facts to be actual facts. While this post could expand to thousands of words, this will be the Readers Digest version: Organization. PI ODVA Regional Associations 27 4 Members 1,487 300 Training centers 28…
Read MoreFor Industrial Internet of Things Success – Standardize
Organizations create standards; users pick the winners. There are indeed many standards that can claim to support the Industrial Internet of Things (IIoT). Let’s consider standards in two areas: devices to controllers and controllers to computing systems. Now computing systems could be HMIs, historians, or analytics packages, but in reality probably all of the above. …
Read MoreFeed Me… PROFINET Data
Audrey II in The Little Shop of Horrors demanded “Feed me!” Analytics systems today also need fed, but they need to be fed data. Enter PROFINET. As part of the Industrial Internet, PROFINET feeds data into controllers which in turn feed information (perhaps through the cloud) to historians and analytics systems. But it all starts…
Read MoreA Beginner’s Guide to PROFINET
What is PROFINET? PROFINET is an industrial communication network designed for robust, deterministic data transmission in the harsh conditions of factory and process environments. It is built on Industrial Ethernet which is built on Ethernet. Ethernet is a network – an open standard defined by IEEE802.3. The standard defines what the signal looks like on…
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