Industrial Ethernet vs OPC UA: What Does Each Do?
A typical plant has PLCs, industrial Ethernet switches, HMIs, SCADA systems, edge computers, MES platforms, and maybe a few cloud applications. Sooner or later, someone asks: “Should we use Industrial Ethernet or OPC UA?” The question is misleading, because the two technologies address different parts of the communication architecture. Industrial Ethernet is network connectivity. OPC […]
What Is Jumbo Frame Support in Industrial Ethernet?
Picture a machine vision camera streaming images to an industrial PC, while a PLC trades small control messages with remote I/O on the same plant network. Both run on Ethernet, but the traffic looks very different. Ethernet moves data in frames, and how much data each frame carries affects how much protocol overhead the network […]
How to Build an Industrial Ethernet Network From Scratch
A new production line needs to connect a PLC, HMI, remote I/O, drives, an industrial PC and SCADA. The first question isn’t “Which Ethernet switch should I buy?” It’s “How should the whole industrial Ethernet network be designed?” A reliable network depends on decisions about devices, topology, switches, cabling, IP addressing, bandwidth, redundancy, environmental conditions, […]
RSTP vs MRP: What’s the Difference?
Picture a factory floor with a ring of industrial Ethernet switches linking PLCs, remote I/O, HMIs and drives. What happens if one Ethernet link in the ring fails? Without redundancy, part of the network may lose communication. Redundancy protocols manage alternate paths so connectivity can continue after certain failures. Two common options are RSTP (Rapid […]
What Is IEEE 802.1Qbv? A Simple Guide to Time-Aware Shaper in TSN
What is IEEE 802.1Qbv? IEEE 802.1Qbv is a TSN standard that defines time-aware scheduling mechanisms for controlling when different traffic queues can transmit through an Ethernet switch. Introduction Picture a production line where a PLC sends control commands, drives exchange motion-control data, sensors report status, and a camera streams video. Diagnostics and general Ethernet traffic […]
Multi-Vendor TSN Interoperability in 2026: What the Latest Test Results Actually Reveal
Multi-Vendor TSN Interoperability in 2026 is becoming less about proving that Time-Sensitive Networking works and more about proving that different manufacturers can make it work together. That distinction is becoming increasingly important as industrial networks move toward more open architectures. A modern production environment may include PLCs, controllers, drives, remote I/O, industrial switches and field […]
What Is Auto MDI in Networking? How It Works and Why It Matters in Industrial Ethernet
In Ethernet networking, the physical connection between two devices has traditionally depended on using the correct cable type. A straight-through cable was generally used to connect different types of devices, while a crossover cable was used when connecting similar devices. Modern Ethernet networks have largely removed this concern through technologies such as Auto MDI and […]
Industrial Ethernet at the Edge: Connecting Machines, IIoT and Cloud
A production machine on the factory floor is constantly generating data: temperature readings, vibration signatures, energy consumption, cycle counts, machine status. That data has value, but only if it actually gets somewhere useful: collected locally, processed close to the machine, and in many cases forwarded to a factory server or cloud platform. So how does […]
How to Troubleshoot Packet Loss in Industrial Ethernet
A PLC on the plant floor starts dropping its connection to a remote I/O rack intermittently, with no obvious pattern. The HMI freezes for a few seconds, throws a communication alarm, then recovers. An operator restarts the device, and it works again… for a while. This is a classic sign of packet loss in industrial […]
IEEE 802.1AS Explained: Time Synchronisation in TSN
Imagine several machines working together on the same production line: a PLC triggering a robotic arm, a drive adjusting motor speed and a vision system inspecting the output. If every device has a slightly different idea of what time it is, coordinating these actions becomes difficult. Packets can arrive reliably and still be useless if […]