ODVA offers Ethernet/IP performance testing

An ODVA product story

Edited by the Engineeringtalk editorial team Dec 1, 2008

ODVA has announced that it will add testing services for measuring the performance attributes of Ethernet/IP products to its offering.

The testing service will be offered at ODVA's Global Technology and Training Center in Ann Arbor, Michigan, US, starting on 1 December 2008 and will provide users with objective data so they can match product performance to their application needs.

The company said this addition to its portfolio of testing services for the family of CIP Networks represents the next step in its activities to aid industry in the deployment of Ethernet/IP for real-time control applications on networks utilising standard, unmodified Ethernet and Internet standards.

The service is an outgrowth of ODVA's activities to promote adoption of Ethernet/IP in the widest possible range of manufacturing applications, including control, safety, synchronisation and motion, configuration, diagnostics, information and asset management.

To that end, ODVA has 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 in this process were the US National Institute of Standards and Technology, the US Council for Automotive Research, and Ethernet/IP vendors who participate in ODVA's Ethernet/IP Workshops and Plugfests.

Ethernet/IP has enabled users to deploy large scale, multi-vendor systems with nodes numbering in the thousands.

By virtue of its active infrastructure and point-to-point connection system, Ethernet/IP has eliminated reliability problems users have sometimes encountered in larger scale systems using fieldbus networks with a passive infrastructure and a trunkline-dropline connection system.

At the same time, because of the Common Industrial Protocol's (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 has made possible the broad-based deployment of standard, unmodified Ethernet and internet technologies in demanding real-time control applications.

Because Ethernet/IP uses standard, unmodified Ethernet, users have also seen immediate 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.

To completely realise 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.

It is in response to this user need that ODVA has decided to 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 that have 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.