Siemens Industrial Network 4.0 User Manual

Technical
article

Fachartikel

Industrial
Network .

Software solutions make a significant
contribution towards saving costs

Digitalization generates a multitude
of customer benefits, but also poses
challenges for industrial communi­cation networks. Security-relevant
standardizations – such as IEC 62443
or IEC 61850 – also play an increas­ingly important role and must be
taken into account for a sustainable
industrial network. Software solu­tions make a significant contribu­tion towards that – reducing com­missioning times and maintenance
phases.

An industrial network for different applications

To achieve the goal of making industrial companies future-proof, new ways and
possibilities have to be created. These begin with the expansion of the network­ing of sensors that are to transmit production data for further processing to cen­tral databases (e.g., cloud) or can also increase flexibility (e.g., provide data for
different applications). These are just two examples that have developed due to
digitalization. In this context, the topic of virtualization should not be ignored,
either. Virtualization offers the key advantage for industrial facilities, and gener­ally the applications of the future, to gain greater flexibility and scalability. For
example, new applications can easily be created via additional virtual instances
and exchange data with the industrial facilities. An industrial communication
network will also have to deal with all of these issues in the future. Furthermore,
industrial communication networks must offer a high degree of flexibility and
adaptability in order to meet the challenges of the future.

siemens.com/sinec

Collaboration between IT and OT worlds – lowering investment costs for industrial facilities.

Compliance with IEC standards

Especially in industrial communication networks, though,
there are additional requirements. There are additional
standards existing in various industries that must be
adhered to (such as IEC  / IEC  in the field of
machine construction and manufacturing and process
industries, or IEC  in electrical switchgear). These
standards also include specifications that in particular
affect the definition of the network architecture. Take for
instance the IEC  standard, where the topic of strict
network separation between the corporate network (IT
network) and the production network (Operational Tech­nology – OT network) is described. Another example is
the IEC  specification, which defines corresponding
communication protocols (such as MMS for data communi­cation and GOOSE telegrams).

All of these aspects need to be considered when creating
a network infrastructure for an industrial communication
network. In addition, the topic of “security” – i.e., network
security – must of course not be disregarded. In many
cases, however, it is neglected as it is considered to be too
cumbersome and too complicated. But there are reasons
why such security-related approaches exist – including
user management, encrypted data protocols, and secure
authentication. Paramount to all of these security require­ments is primarily the protection of industrial networks
against unauthorized access and manipulation.