Changing the Good Oil Remotely - Foxboro Evo Maintain on the SCD2200



Design Variations can hinder operation and maintenance

Occasionally developers find it useful to add enhancements to a product, adding some esoteric variation and new set of use cases.  This can happen often with systems level products, oweing to the almost infinite variety of NEW NEW end user configurations which can be achieved.

 

Toward the end of last week on my return to Australia, I visited Bondi Beach in Sydney and took the pilgrimage around the headland which was hosting the annual 'Sculptures by the Sea' event.  There among the hundred odd sculptures scattered around the cliff walk was a car which had been shall we say 'enhanced' by the addition of various pipes and structures.  The topology of the thing would definitely give your average maintenance technician a headache, probably which could only be resolved by a swim with the sharks or a welding torch.

 

Reflecting on IP/Ethernet

"Backstage" - Reflecting on EtherNet / IP / Ethernet

I started out this blog post after reply to a somewhat confused sales person about the use of the trademarked EtherNet/IP protocol with their local telecomms provider. "Could we order a driver for it ? " After several cross-country exchanges we figured out, politely almost, that perhaps the problem was that he was thinking Internet Protocol, best described by DARPA in 1981, but writing EtherNet/IP which refers to the more proprietary Industrial Protocol originated by Rockwell some 20 years later.

How best to explain this .. without being too long suffering about it.

For readers of this blog, the following excerpts from descriptive information found on the web may be a reminder of the difference.

Securing SCADA Islands

Islands of SCADA in a sea of 'public' insecurity
photo - 'squares' by flickr:fdecomite

Good Tidings - This post discusses securing the environment of SCADA where in-stations and outstations are located within a sea of insecurity created by the use of the Internet as well as the other 'public' communications channels. These Islands of Security require additions to the SCADA protocol stacks as well as the higher user level metrics and accountability.