Talk:Industrial Ethernet

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Spam

The December 14 edit replaced two external links to Westermo competitors with links to Westermo main page. (Westermo is a manufacturer of industrial Ethernet switches)

After the edit, three out of the six external links pointed to Westermo. There are also some Westermo links in the article itself. Looks to me like Westermo is trying to use Wikipedia as a free advertising service.

I have tried to clean up most of the advertising.

I just undid yet another Westermo advertising attempt. If there is any valid reason why Westermo should have multiple external links, and garretcom/gcna none, please let me know. Otherwise I will continue to treat the Westermo link edits as vandalism.

Brolin (talk) 03:43, 8 January 2008 (UTC)[reply]

I removed more westermo spam today, as well as spam from a few other manufacturers, who seem to be hell-bent on ramming their links into wikipedia. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 66.15.212.169 (talk) 21:04, 4 February 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Proposed deletion

I propose this article doesn't belong on Wikipedia, and should be deleted. I argue that "Industrial Ethernet;" the compound noun with an uppercase "i," a single lexical item; is rarely used outside of marketing literature, and never used in technical documents. I can find no real documentation about what this mysterious "Industrial Ethernet" is. Is it a collection of protocols? That would be silly considering so many people use the phrase "industrial Ethernet protocols." Is it a modified version of IEEE 802.3 Ethernet? No, FOUNDATION Fieldbus HSE, a commonly cited example of an "Industrial Internet protocol" uses standard Ethernet. Does any body govern "Industrial Ethernet?" Are there technical specs anywhere? Does it have any attributes at all!?

Just look at this article "Industrial Ethernet is the name given to the use of the Ethernet Communications Interface in an industrial environment, for automation and production machine control."

Ok, so "Industrial Ethernet" is a name? How is this different from the concept "industrial Ethernet" where industrial is simply an adjective? Was this the result of a reification fallacy? Perhaps this, and the will of some "Industrial Ethernet™" device manufacturers that people believe their's some difference between an "Industrial Ethernet" switch and an ordinary Ethernet switch?

"What Industrial Ethernet is not, is that it is not just a more robust IT version of Ethernet." Disregarding the odd style of this sentence, the double negative, etc, "IT version" of Ethernet? Really!? It shouldn't be necessary to declaratively state each thing, a thing is not, in order to explain it.

Read this article carefully, and tell me you understand what "Industrial Ethernet" is, and how it's different from "industrial Ethernet."

216.63.102.177 (talk) 02:18, 5 August 2009 (UTC)[reply]

The article needs a rewrite to get rid of the "Industrial Ethernet is not IT Ethernet" stuff. We all know why so-called "Industrial Ethernet" exists, as a consequence of the failure of things like Fieldbus and other industry wide efforts to agree on a high-speed network that is non-proprietary. Ethernet may not be quite the ideal solution for industrial process control, and TCP/IP over Ethernet may also have issues, but it's a)well standardized b)"open" in the sense that it's not locked to one vendor. The sheer speed of Ethernet gets around the uncertainty due to collision detection, and the industrial guys tend to put every PLC on its own segment to a switch to eliminate collisions anyway. It's only because hardware like switches have gotten so cheap due to IT demand that industrial devices can afford to implement something as complex as TCP/IP over Ethernet. It's a lot cheaper to spec extended-range semiconductors and a conformal coating on a circuit board than to develop the equivalent functionality of a multiport Ethernet switch for the relatively tiny and fragmented industrial automation sector. It's still too bulky to run on cheap 8-bit microcontrollers, so Ethernet to the sensor is still a rarity.

Less ad-talk, and more discussion of the limitations of Ethernet as a process bus and how to get around those limitations, is in order. The article can be reorganized to talk more about the "islands of automation" problem of proprietary networks. The article should also acknowledge that it takes more than an Ethernet port on a device to connect it to an automation network. Just because I can phone someone in Germany doesn't mean I can carry on a meaningful conversation, although the network will work flawlessly. And you'll never see an airplane doing fly-by-wire over Ethernet.

There are some IEEE papers using the phrase "Industrial Ethernet" in the titles, so it's a little more than a marketing buzzword. But it's not a separate product or protocol, more of a set of tools used to adapt Ethernet to hard real-time control in plant floor environments.

I wonder why Token ring never caught on in industry? It's much more determinisitic and a lot of industrial networks work in similar fashion. Wish Iknew enough about this. --Wtshymanski (talk) 15:57, 7 September 2009 (UTC)[reply]

It has! There are several industrial communication protocols which use token ring. Especially Japanese engineering companies seem to favor token ring approaches. Some industrial protocols which use token ring: FL-Net, CC-Link IE ( Over Gigabit Ethernet!), BACNet over ARCNet, ControlNet (uses a scheduled transmission method which is very much token ring like).Brolin (talk) 21:44, 20 December 2011 (UTC)[reply]

It's a topic, isn't it? The intro says that in addition to protocols, it can also refer to the use of standard Ethernet protocols with rugged connectors and extended temperature switches. Just like the supertopic of Ethernet also has physical and logical parts. The problem is then that the “industrial” qualifier is not precisely definable, but fortunately, the field is segregated enough between industrial and domestic that I don't think a weak definition is much of a problem as things stand. I have written about M12 and related connectors and would like to write about other connectors for Ethernet specifically, and this seems like the best place. –Anordal (talk) 00:51, 10 January 2022 (UTC)[reply]

On second thought, I would rather write about connectors separately. Writing about industrial connectors on a page about industrial protocols is pedagogically wrong: It creates the illusion that using the connectors in any way implies using the protocols or vice versa. But not only can they be used separately, they often are! Generally, it is important to treat separate topics separately when they are easy to mistake for being one and the same. Such as with protocol and implementation – it clearly doesn't matter how much they are used together. The fuzzy title of “Industrial Ethernet” also facilitates this confusability.

I say the article should be split. And since “industrial” is undefinable, it should not be the defining characteristic of any of the parts: They should probably aim at becoming subsections of whichever article deals with Ethernet protocols and connectors respectively. However, these pages don't seem to exist yet. Since this page is mostly about the protocols, how about letting this be the protocol page? –Anordal (talk) 14:19, 12 January 2022 (UTC)[reply]

Example

No longer in article ~Kvng (talk) 16:21, 3 April 2020 (UTC)[reply]

The following discussion is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

I'm not sure what point the Beer example is trying to make. There doesn't appear to be much value in it. --Kvng (talk) 19:38, 3 March 2011 (UTC)[reply]

I agree... this 'event' probably ghas more to do with crappy design than inherent Ethernet issues. It seems to me that Industrial Ethernet is just another option with different complexity, compromises and cost. Alisterb (talk) 00:43, 15 July 2011 (UTC)[reply]

The discussion above is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

Random entries in table

No longer in article ~Kvng (talk) 16:17, 3 April 2020 (UTC)[reply]

The following discussion is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

Can anyone explain to me what the formatting of the "Main Protocols" table is supposed to be? Looks random to me. This should be rewritten as text. --Wtshymanski (talk) 14:53, 7 December 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Here's my guess at what the table is trying to say: The protocols listed in rows formerly operated on their purpose-built physical layer. I believe the first column is the original protocol name in that environment. The second column is the new name new carried over Ethernet instead of the purpose-built physical layer. Third column indicates the link, network and transport layer used on Ethernet. --Kvng (talk) 16:52, 9 December 2011 (UTC)[reply]

If we're guessing ( and we're editors) and not coming up with a good understanding of the table, the table is rubbish. --Wtshymanski (talk) 19:21, 9 December 2011 (UTC)[reply]

The discussion above is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

External links modified

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Proper noun?

What's with the caps, Industrial Ethernet? Based on the lead description it doesn't sound like the subject is a proper noun so should be, industrial Ethernet, unless at the beginning of a sentence? Anyone disagree? ~Kvng (talk) 15:05, 28 October 2017 (UTC)[reply]

I have made adjustments ~Kvng (talk) 16:16, 3 April 2020 (UTC)[reply]