ODVA to Offer Testing Services for Measuring Performance of Attributes of EtherNet/IP Products
December 4, 2008 // Published as a news service by IHS
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The Open DeviceNet Vendors Association (ODVA) will offer testing services for measuring performance attributes of EtherNet/Internet Protocol (IP) products.
This service is an outgrowth of ODVA's activities to promote adoption of EtherNet/IP in manufacturing applications including control, safety, synchronization and motion, configuration, diagnostics, information and asset management.
To that end, ODVA engaged in a collaborative process with EtherNet/IP vendors, users and IT metrology scientists to identify aspects of network performance that have the most impact on real-time control applications and develop the test methodologies on which the testing service will be based.
Among those who participated with ODVA in this process were the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) and the United States Council for Automotive Research(USCAR).
EtherNet/IP enabled users to deploy large scale, multi-vendor systems. By virtue of its active infrastructure and point-to-point connection system, EtherNet/IP eliminated reliability problems users sometimes encountered in larger scale systems using field bus networks with a passive infrastructure and a trunkline-dropline connection system, according to ODVA.
Because of the Common Industrial Protocol (CIP) producer-consumer architecture, EtherNet/IP's ability to support multicast, broadcast and unicast messages and the inclusion of performance enhancing protocol extensions in CIP such as CIP Sync, the functionality in CIP that implements the IEEE 1588 Precision Time Protocol, EtherNet/IP made possible the deployment of standard, unmodified Ethernet and Internet technologies in demanding real-time control applications, said ODVA.
Because EtherNet/IP uses standard, unmodified Ethernet, users saw performance benefits as a result of faster silicon used for the network interface circuitry, increases in network speed and expanded deployment of quality of service techniques, said ODVA.
To realize the performance gains made possible by EtherNet/IP, some users will need objective data on product network performance in order to match product performance to application requirements, said ODVA.
It is in response to this user need that ODVA will expand its testing services to include network performance for EtherNet/IP products.
The tests conducted with this service will measure several aspects of network performance, including attributes such as the type and number of network connections supported and the time elapsed between the production of subsequent frames of network traffic.
EtherNet/IP products which received ODVA declarations of conformity as an EtherNet/IP-compliant product are eligible for the testing service and to have their declaration of conformity augmented to include the performance measurements taken by ODVA.
The testing service will be offered at ODVA's Global Technology and Training Center starting on Dec. 1, 2008.
Source: Open DeviceNet Vendors Association (ODVA).