The Infrastructure Conference
loading… The Infrastructure Conference? No, it was The Automation Conference, but the Industrial Ethernet panel I was on spent a lot of time talking about infrastructure. I was there representing PROFINET (and Industrial Ethernet protocols in general to some extent), but most of the other panelists were from vendors. We spent some time discussing wire,…
Fieldbuses, down; Industrial Ethernets, up?
loading… Fieldbuses are down and Industrial Ethernets are up? Is that what a new IMS Research study shows (How Sustainable is an Industrial Fieldbus Infrastructure?)? Or, as Larry O’Brien put it in his blog post (What’s in a Node? Putting Market Research in Perspective): “[T]he study results have caused quite a stir in the media…
PROFINET one-day training class – What is it like?
loading… I’m sure you’ve been wondering what a PROFINET one-day training class is like. (Unless you’re one of the thousands of folks who have already attended one.) Here’s what happens: Badge pickup and onsite registration begin early on class day, like 7:00am. The class does not start until 8:30 but some folks arrive very early,…
Hanover Fair: News Roundup
loading… After ranting just a little about PROFIpeople, I was called upon to introduce the international version of PROFInews. I’ll repeat the introduction in the next PROFInews North American Edition. And that introduction is about Hanover Fair so make that your first stop in the Hanover fair news roundup. And it’s followed by even more…
Hanover Fair – A Look Around
loading… PI was once again part of the Field Communication Lounge at Hanover Fair. The Lounge covered almost 5,400 square feet and was shared with competing technologies, complementary technologies, and some that are both. But let’s ignore them and look around the PI portion of the Lounge (click image to enlarge): A one-minute clip of…
Hanover Fair – Diagnostics
loading… PROFINET diagnostics are a huge differentiator for PROFINET. Building on the concepts pioneered by PROFIBUS (at the device, module, and channel level), PROFINET adds diagnostics for the Industrial Ethernet network. Because PROFINET is just Ethernet, it leverages IT protocols to prevent or quickly find problems. How does that help? This short animation, introduced at…
Hanover Fair: The News – PROFI Growth
loading… I almost hate to talk about the numbers of PROFIBUS and PROFINET nodes – the growth is so great that it just seems like bragging. I did say “almost.” The numbers through the end of 2012: PROFINET jumped to 5.8 million nodes installed. PROFIBUS grew to an installed base of 43.8 million of which…
Hanover Fair: The News – New Competence Center
loading… There was news of PROFIBUS and PROFINET at Hanover Fair: “50th PI Competence Center (PICC) Established” and it’s in the US! KW Software has become the fourth PICC in North America, joining the PROFI Interface Center (PIC), Molex, and HMS Networks. The PIC is a PICC for both PROFIBUS and PROFINET, the others for…
Hanover Fair First Impressions
loading… In the hotel bar after the first day of the show, a guy two stools away observed that we had obviously not been impressed by the show. For us it was just another show. The guy two stools down was from Indiana and it was his first show. He was more impressed than we…
PROFINET and IT Protocols
loading… At ControlDesign.com Jim Montague writes that P Is for Protocol. He points out four IT protocols that help diagnose Ethernet performance and manage traffic: Simple Network Management Protocol (SNMP) Internet Group Management Protocol (IGMP) Dynamic Host Configuration Protocol (DHCP) Link Layer Discovery Protocol (LLDP) Jim defines each of those. To his list, I would…