Networked Enterprise Featured Article

Automated solutions are extremely important in the mass produced and remotely controlled world we live in. Whether it is the manufacturing plant producing tens of thousands of widgets every day, or the network infrastructure behind it controlling the entire facility: they have to be monitored thoroughly to ensure they are functioning properly. While in the past this was accomplished manually, the complex technology and sheer volume of output now requires software driven systems. As a global provider of industrial automation infrastructure solutions, Panduit Corp. has increased its presence with the acquisition of IntraVUE, a tool for visualization and diagnostics of industrial Ethernet control networks.

Having a visualization and diagnostics solution for industrial Ethernet control networks allows facility operators to detect network interruptions. Not being able to detect these interruptions can result in unscheduled downtime in lost production, which can amount to a lot of money depending on what is being manufactured.

“Panduit's acquisition of IntraVUE will provide its customers a window into its physical infrastructure solutions that will help manufacturers avoid or shorten unscheduled downtime, which can often provide an immediate return of investment the first time downtime is prevented or substantially reduced,” said Craig Resnick, ARC Advisory Group.

IntraVUE is designed to specifically address Ethernet deployment and process for manufacturing applications. It quickly identifies common problems that create loss of production data, process shutdown, duplicate IP and MAC addresses, device or cable moves, connection or application faults and unauthorized connections.

Key features of IntraVUE include:

• Trending Communication Between Devices - to determine if a communication problem is network or application/driver related.
• Communications Event Log - provides details about network activities including device connects, disconnects, and device movement within the network. Advanced search and filtering options allows extensive data mining to quickly identify relationships.
• Threshold Graphing - hover and zoom features allows quick identification of the one or two devices out of hundreds that may be: generating excessive traffic or broadcast storms, requesting large files or multicast data, having intermittent connections, or becoming overloaded and responding sluggishly.
• User Guide and Machine and Wiring Diagrams - easy access to documentation with links to open guides and diagrams directly from the IntraVUE device details window.
• Import / Export - generate asset reports that identify not only the devices with their IP and MAC addresses, but their connection locations (port-to-port wiring).
• Real-Time Device Details via SNMP - easy access to: firmware level, port speeds & duplicity, device temperature, communication rates, error rates and configuration details.

More than 80 percent of support calls in these type of deployments are connection or end device related, which means a lot of wasted money for a simple fix. With InterVUE, companies will no longer have to make expensive calls to IT experts to solve basic network problems. The graphically enhanced software tools it provides lets plant technicians handle the frequent network interruptions, thus lowering the downtime and saving costs.