| Device Servers Help Industrial Products Transition to the Web | ||||||||||
| Are you interested in adding interoperability and scalability to your industrial network? Are you an OEM that wants to incorporate Ethernet into your product? A new generation of device servers are on the market allowing you to do just that. A device server is a compact, revolutionary, intelligent networking adapter that brings a world of connectivity opportunities to the factory floor | ||||||||||
 In an industrial environment with multiple proprietary protocols and transmission media, network management and deployment can become cumbersome at best. It can be difficult and costly incorporating newer types of devices with older devices, namely serial devices, due to cabling considerations, protocols, and pin out specifications. Device servers remove the physical and protocol barriers between devices, by enabling them to coexist on Ethernet. Indeed, the move toward Ethernet in industrial applications is growing. It is easy to see why. With Ethernet, placing and interfacing of PLC’s, for example, and their corresponding modules become less labour intensive and time consuming. The cabling connector is simpler with Ethernet, and nodes can be placed far apart from their respective counterparts. Nodes can be added and removed, and physical topology configurations can be changed without having to worry about a bus fault or terminations. Consider the details involved when connecting an RS- 232 serial device to another device of the same type. Which pin is RX, which is TX? Which control signal sets are you using, RTS/CTS, DTR/DSR or both? Are you using DB9 or DB25? What if you’re running RS-485 or Modbus? With device servers, you’re RS-232/422/485/Modbus devices can all work together on Ethernet without worrying about the physical interface details of the devices! One example of a device server is the Net-232 from Grid Connect. It is a relatively small box with an RJ-45 port on one side, and a DB9 on the other, that will transform serial port to an Ethernet port, and much more. It is a multifaceted adapter that provides a number of functions including protocol conversion, serial tunnelling, remote data acquisition, modem emulation, and more. Now you can connect two serial devices to each other from one side of the factory floor to the other, or from across the internet, eliminating the need for a leased serial line. You can interconnect a multitude of serial devices using your already existing Ethernet infrastructure. It supports telnet, TCP, UDP, DHCP, ICMP, ARP, SNMP, and TFTP among other protocols. With two Net-232’s, you can connect two serial devices to each other in tunnel mode, whereby serial data from one device is sent through the attached Net-232, encapsulated into Ethernet packets, and sent to another one anywhere on an Ethernet network, or the internet. At the end destination, the packets are converted back into serial data and sent to the attached remote serial device. They are capable of operating in full duplex. The conversion is transparent to the serial devices, in that they function as if they were directly connected with a serial cable, so no drivers, software, or hardware changes are necessary. There is an encrypted version available, for sensitive applications. You can also access data from a serial device over Ethernet using just one device, by initiating a telnet or TCP/IP connection to it. By redirecting a COM port from your local PC with the included software, you can interface with a remote serial device over Ethernet as if you were directly connected as well. The Net-232 is configurable from its serial port, or over Ethernet by using its built in, customizable web server. All you need to do is plug the serial side of the Net-232 into a serial device, and plug the RJ-45 side into your network. The included software CD also contains a program that will automatically locate the Net-232 on your network, enabling you to connect to it and configure all of the necessary parameters for operation. Configurable options include settings for most standard serial signals, and TCP/UDP connection properties. The Net-232 can even send you an email upon configurable triggered conditions. It is available with customized firmware, and as an OEM module for manufacturers. Grid Connect has other device servers available supporting many other types of protocols, such as Ethernet/IP, Modbus, RS- 485, 802.11 wireless, TTL, and digital I/O. Device servers pave the way toward using Ethernet with your existing and future infrastructure, enabling you to centralize management, cut cabling and equipment costs, as well as prepare you for the increasing popularity of transitioning industrial devices and standards to Ethernet. Using them will help you keep up with such a rapidly changing network landscape. | ||||||||||
|
|
||||||||||
|
Grid Connect |
||||||||||
|
|
||||||||||
|
||||||||||
|
|
||||||||||
