J
While this is not strictly an HMI/Software question, it seems to relate to the "tower of babel" problem that has been touched on in previous few messages. Everyone seems to agree that communicating information from industrial hardware to PC's, other hardware, or Information Systems is important, often critical. However, this communication is not always simple or seamless using existing protocols and hardware provided by Simemens, Rockwell/AB, GE, Schneider etc etc etc. What about the emerging standards for "scheduled" or "real-time" Ethernet protocols? I wish I had a list of them all, but EtherNet/IP from Rockwell and Modbus over IP are examples that come to mind. While these do standardize life at many levels of the OSI model, they still don't eliminate the need for complex bridging between different vendors protocols or to different systems. In many cases the protocols may not even play well on the same wire. Is this truly not just an extension of proprietary models? Is there a belief that a special protocol designed for "real-time" or "scheduled" traffic is required - or is the inherent speed of 100MB Ethernet enough to allow for a few collision/recovery cycles? Jeff [email protected]