Re: Industrial PC (Sealed) -- Linux

[Derek Agar <derekagar@yahoo.com>]

Ricky,
I am a little confused by your setup.  To me it seems
you only need 2 networks.  TCP/IP and CAN (or whatever
controller network you use).  On the TCP/IP side,
setup all the devices to use DHCP, print the MAC
address on each device with a labler along with the
device name.  Setup the dhcp and dns to hand out ip
addresses and names based upon what you decided upon. 
Setup a network monitoring system (I am currently
using Zenoss which works great.) and have it send out
alerts/pages to the people that need to be informed.
To go a step further create a physical network map
that is overlayed with the layout of the plant.  Now
the tech that gets a page or SMS that "servo12" is
acting up can look on his printed diagram and know
exactly where that is.
I really only see the need for 1 or 2 computers
(depending on redundancy and loads) for running
dns/dhcp/postfix/network monitoring.  You can even get
zenoss as a vmware image.
Derek

--- ricky@learnautomation.com wrote:

> With the advent of Ethernet/IP, many companies are
> starting to use
> Ethernet for Industrial Control.  Before this, it
> was not possible with
> TCP/IP because it was not "Deterministic", so we
> couldn't gurantee packets
> would get from the I/O Device to the processor in a
> guarantted time.
> 
> Now, many companies are looking out over a sea of IP
> addresses, and their
> maintenance personel can't figure out what's what! 
> Ethernet IP devices
> have the ability to use hostnames, but a DNS Server
> must reside on the
> Ethernet/IP network.  This network must be isolated
> from a TCP/IP nework,
> because TCP/IP packets are not deterministic.  This
> means that each
> machine on a plant floor has it's own isolated
> Ethernet network for
> controlling devices, and a separate ethernet module
> that reports
> statistics to the plant server over the TCP/IP
> network.
> 
> I'm looking at this little box as a possible
> solution for DNS, but the
> price is simply forbidding:
> 
> http://www.linuxdevices.com/news/NS3447460380.html
> 
> At $1700 a whack that's a little high...  Then you
> must times that by two
> because if one goes down, a secondary better be
> waiting!  The multiply
> that times the number of machines on the plant
> floor, and you will end up
> with an astronomical price.
> 
> Does anyone know of an industrial solution similar
> to this that can simply
> serve as a DNS and email server?  (When something
> goes wrong, ethernet/ip
> devices can send an email to a cell phone -- This
> means maintenance can be
> at the machine before the operator even knows there
> is a problem in some
> cases)
> 
> The WRT54G comes to mind immediately, but no one is
> going to mount
> something you can use at home (and readily available
> in a public store)
> inside an industrial cabinet.  It must be a reliable
> box.  Preferrably
> without fans.  This box need to run for years and
> years without anyone
> thinking about it.
> 
> Thanks!
> 
> Ricky Bryce
> 
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