Results , Insights and Best Practices from IIC Testbeds : Time-Sensitive Networking Testbed
1 . INTRODUCTION
This article presents information gathered about the Industrial Internet Consortium ’ s ( IIC ) Time Sensitive Networking – Flexible Manufacturing Testbed , commonly known as the TSN Testbed . The information and insights described below were captured in an interview of TSN Testbed lead Paul Didier , Manufacturing Solutions Architect in the IoT SW Group at Cisco , conducted by Joseph Fontaine , VP of Testbed Programs at the IIC .
2 . TIME SENSITIVE NETWORKING – FLEXIBLE MANUFACTURING TESTBED
Time Sensitive Networking is a new technology that enhances Ethernet , a foundational piece of the Internet of Things ( IoT ). The IIC ’ s TSN Testbed endeavors to apply new TSN technology in a manufacturing system with a wide range of automation and control vendors , to display the new capabilities and value of TSN . Manufacturers are dealing with automation and control systems that make up a large part of the 50 billion things we are trying to connect , and they usually require the pieces and parts and the overall system to be very deterministic in nature .
This deterministic characteristic is important to many industrial automation and control applications for manufacturing in oil and gas , utilities and transportation . TSN is an enhancement of Ethernet ( standards IEEE 802.1 and 802.3 comprise what is generally considered Ethernet ) to bring more deterministic capabilities to the network . It is enabling more and more devices , applications and systems to use a standard , open , inter-connected network that is the basic concept and driver of the IoT . If manufacturers do not connect things because they are worried about how the network is going to perform , they cannot implement IoT applications . This technology is viewed as a very important enhancement and upgrade to the standard networks to enable the overall Industrial IoT .
The goals of the TSN Testbed are to : 1 ) Show TSN ’ s readiness to accelerate the marketplace and 2 ) Show the business value of accelerating the adoption of this technology .
3 . TESTBED STATUS
The TSN Testbed partners are currently focused on the technical aspects . They have brought in vendors with infrastructure , devices , switches and test equipment , to conduct rigorous testing . They have also developed successful demonstrations . Significantly , much of the effort has been getting various parts of the TSN-enhanced Ethernet to standard interoperate and work together . The end-devices and applications developed by participating vendors will be built into the testbed as soon as the technical interoperability is successful . The resulting manufacturing applications will show the business value .
- 20 - January 2017