Merged Networking

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David Richardson

I just saw an article from <b>Automation Weekly</b> entitled <b><i>"A Single Network for Industrial Ethernet: Will Time Sensitive Networking (TSN) Accomplish Convergence?"</b></i> and had to ask (bluntly) who in their right mind would want IT and Controls networks to converge and why? In my experience, the absolutely worst, to be opposed at all costs, most horrible thing to ever happen to control networks is to allow IT sorts to tinker with them, because the machines will sooner or later be trashed by IT "policies" and plain old stupidity. IT (sorta) understands the needs of desktops and (maybe) telephones, but have no clue about controls needs, our software, etc., etc. ad nauseum.

While I have been aware of A-B pushing this crap for quite a while, I have refused to accept it for the simple reason that I have had my controls networks destroyed too many times by IT and network administrators' ignorant policy making and thumbfingered playing around. The other thing is that allowing IT networks into controls means that our systems are exposed to all manner of viruses, worms, and the Microsoft "updates" and "upgrades" that break our software almost every time.

Now that I have vented, does anyone have anything good to say about it from a controls standpoint? I know that IT thinks they should control the world, but I am asking if there is anything good from a controls standpoint, if there is any technical reason to not actively and strongly oppose this crap.

Original article at https://www.automation.com/a-single...nsitive-networking-tsn-accomplish-convergence
 
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