Application Overview
PROFINET operates in challenging industrial environments and is capable of delivering high speed and precise data transmission for equipment control and monitoring required by manufacturing plants. PROFINET I/O (L2 switches) is used for data exchange between I/O controllers (PLC) and I/O devices (field devices). PROFINET switches must be capable of transmitting real-time data from I/O devices to I/O controller while prioritizing the PROFINET packets since they are critical information-carrying packets.
Key Considerations
Key Volktek Benefits
| Feature | Benefit | ||
| Reliability | Redundant Power | Remains On During Power Failure | Built-in surge protection, dual power sources, and battery backup ensure stable device operations for 24/7 network reliability. |
| Availability | Link Redundancy | Fast Network Recovery | Link aggregation and dual-homing rapidly react to physical link failure and recover immediately (milliseconds) or provide an alternate pathy link to support continuous transmission. |
| Performance | Quality of Service (QoS) | Define the Critical Networks | Networks typically operate on a best-effort delivery basis, which means that all traffic transmitting from ports has equal priority and chance of being delivered in a timely manner. When congestion occurs, the same traffic has an equal chance of being dropped. When configuring the QoS feature, specific networks can be prioritized, optimizing the network performance and bandwidth utilization. |
| Security | 802.1x RADIUS / TACACS+ | Secure the Network by Authenticating the Users | Allows the network administrator to specify a whitelist of allowed MAC addresses, allowing only those devices to connect to the network. It also limits the number of devices connected to a single downlink port known as Dynamic Assignment. |
| e-mail Alarm | Triggered Events Alert Via Email | Sends email alerts via SMTP to notify the administrator if real-time problems occur such as firmware or configuration changes, device status, link connectivity status, etc. These triggered events help administrators to quickly identify, isolate and resolve network issues. | |
| Management | Link Layer Discovery Protocol (LLDP) | Access Device and Network Information | Managed switches provide management of SNMP traps or alert messages sent from a remote SNMP-enabled device to a center SNMP server. |
Application Diagram
