Vibration is a very real problem across a whole spectrum of industries, but how to tackle it effectively has always been something of a conundrum when it comes to Ethernet connectivity. If you’re working in sectors such as the rail industry, then you have to deal with vibration as a fact of life. But what does that mean in terms of cost penalties in the products you have to buy?
For Ethernet switches, the obvious answer is to buy an M12-based option to replace the standard RJ45 connectors for the copper cable ports, but these connectors are so much bulkier that it’s virtually impossible to find switches with the same port densities an a given form factors. So either you have to go with products that are much bigger, or you have to compromise on capability. M12 product variants are also typically more expensive. And what about securing the power connector or the fibre connectors? You rarely see that as an option, but these connectors are just as vulnerable to vibration.
Interesting, then, to see one manufacturer offering the option of a simple bracket to provide a low cost solution to secure connections for copper, fibre and power cables, allowing all these cables to be securely held in place with standard cable ties. Giving all the assurance of secured connection that you might get by moving to M12 connectors, but without the added cost or the requirement for much bulkier products, it really does prove the old adage that the simple solutions are often the best.
The various industrial Ethernet protagonists are continuing their bold claims for market share of their protocols and technologies, and there’s really no reason to dispute the figures. It’s interesting, though, to consider what this must mean for traditional fieldbus, which is surely being ousted from even the darkest nooks of the factory network.
What’s interesting is to listen to the way people talk about their network choices. In particular, while they refer to moving away from a specific fieldbus protocol, they tend only to talk about moving to “an industrial Ethernet solution” rather than to a specific implementation.
Perhaps that holds the one of the keys to the growing success of industrial Ethernet in the automation market. The specific implementation is less of an absolute decision.
Twelve months ago, with oil prices nudging $90 a barrel, the idea of a $100 barrel seemed unthinkable. There were mass protests at petrol prices that were trending towards 80p per litre. Now oil prices are hovering around $140 a barrel, and pundits are warning us to expect prices of at least $150 a barrel.
In the long term, we have the energy output of wind farms, solar electricity, hydroelectricity and wave energy to look forward to, not to mention the nuclear option that has found favour in the UK of late. In the short to medium term, however, the government’s own findings suggest that fossil fuels will continue to be our predominant source of energy for decades to come. This makes the current high price of oil a real worry.
The pessimistic perception, though, that oil reserves are about to dry up may be wrong. Some experts believe that up to 30 billion barrels are still in the ground. And following evidence that 300 fields off the coast of Britain are still to be explored and tapped properly, reserves could be even greater. If we have the supplies, and we have a corresponding demand, then the key to lower prices lies in minimising the costs of discovery and production. An important factor here will be industrial networks. They have the capacity to process the huge amounts of data involved in oil and gas industry SCADA and data acquisition systems. But surely that’s only half the story. Networks must also be hardened for field operations, and offer redundancy for highest availability. Such heavy-duty networks hold the key to enabling producers to explore for hydrocarbon fields, develop new fields and manage production and transportation.
It’s no surprise then that the demand for secure, redundant, hardened high-bandwidth industrial networking capabilities at oil and gas exploration sites, energy field development, production, and transportation facilities is on the rise.
ARC Advisory Group says the number of industrial Ethernet nodes sold worldwide is likely to treble from over one million last year, to more than three million by 2012. This forecast is contained in a new report from the ARC Advisory Group, which predicts that the industrial Ethernet market will grow at a compounded annual growth rate (CAGR) of 27.5% over the coming five years.
Perhaps more interesting, though is the view on what’s driving this growth. The technologists would have us believe it’s all about openness. But the real picture may be that it’s all about the widespread availability of industrial Ethernet. There are plenty of applications where open standards really aren’t the be all and end all, and yet even here you see vendors adopting and embedding Ethernet. There’s no need for interoperability with other systems here, so does the advantage come down to standardisation?
Surely the real benefit, though, is the ease of integration with higher level systems? These days, everything has to be either interrogated by a higher-level system, or link into an MRP or ERP structure driven by a higher level system. If you can put all of your technologies on a single standard network, that really simplifies things.
Then of course, as the ARC report points out, there is the wide skills base for configuring, installing, maintaining, and troubleshooting Ethernet networks, reducing the need for specialised personnel, as well as making training and support easier. Ethernet’s global availability and its support by major IT and automation vendors, also helps to make it more attractive than dedicated industrial networks.
