Ethernet Switch Features

Important to EtherNet/IP

Switch Features are Important

The proper selection of switches to be used in real-time (I/O) EtherNet/IP networks is
critical. There are several features that are very important and can provide the
appropriate infrastructure for your application. The following features need to be
considered:
Required:
Full-duplex capability on all ports
IGMP Snooping
Port Mirroring
Recommended:
VLAN
Auto-negotiation and manually configurable speed/duplex
Wire-speed switching fabric
SNMP for switch management
IEEE 802.1D Spanning Tree Protocol
Desirable: see last slide

Full-duplex
Full-duplex capability on all ports:
Full duplex capability eliminates collisions on the wire due to the separate
transmit and receive channels for each device. Combined with the speed of
switches available today, delays related to collisions or traffic in the switch
can be made negligible. The end result is you can achieve a high degree of
determinism with an EtherNet/IP network and it works well for I/O control.

Internet Group Multicast Protocol (IGMP)

Snooping
IGMP Snooping:

Sends out IGMP polls

to determine who is in
a multicast group

to plant network

IGMP snooping constrains the

flooding of multicast traffic by
dynamically configuring switch
ports so that multicast traffic is
forwarded only to ports associated
with a particular IP multicast group.
Switches that support IGMP
snooping learn which ports have
devices that are part of a particular
multicast group and only forward
the multicast packets to the ports
that are part of the multicast group.

Layer 3 Switch or Router

Layer 2 Switch

Listens to the polls

and responses to
determine who is in
each multicast group
Layer 2 Switch

Controller
(Consumer)

I/O
(Multicast
Producer
)

IGMP Snooping - continued

IGMP Snooping:
to plant network

Normally, a commercial layer 2

switch that supports IGMP
snooping needs a router (which
could be a layer 3 switch) to
send out the IGMP polls in order
to learn what devices are part of
the multicast group.
*** IMPORTANT ***
Some industrial layer 2 switches
support IGMP snooping without
the requirement for a router or
layer 3 switch to be present to
send out the IGMP polls.

Note that none of

the multicast traffic
hits the router
Layer 3 Switch or Router

Layer 2 Switch

Layer 2 Switch

Controller
(Consumer)

I/O
(Multicast
Producer
)

Port Mirroring
Port Mirroring:
Port mirroring refers to the ability to direct a duplicate of the frames being transmitted on one port to
another port. This allows a traffic analyzer to be connected to a switch and have the ability to monitor
the traffic on a given port. Without port mirroring, an analyzer is not able to see frames on other ports.
Traffic analyzers are used extensively by people who support Ethernet networks. Therefore, it is critical
that a switch is selected that supports port mirroring so that a traffic analyzer will function correctly on
the network.

Virtual Local Area Networks (VLANs)

VLAN:
The benefits of VLANs are that a switch can be configured to handle two isolated networks without the
traffic from one network burdening the other. IP multicast traffic from VLAN 1 will not reach VLAN 2.
For multicast traffic, you could accomplish the same thing with IGMP snooping. However, a VLAN will
also block unicast and broadcast traffic, and adds a measure of security between networks.

PC

Controller1
1

Controller2
2

3
Switch

VLAN 1
4

I/O

I/O

VLAN 2

I/O

I/O

I/O

Auto-negotiation / Manually Configurable

Speed/Duplex

Auto-negotiation and manually configurable speed/duplex:

Auto-negotiation allows devices to select the most optimal way to
communicate without the user having to configure the devices. If a
manually configured device is attached to an auto-negotiation device
there can be problems which result in a high rate of CRC errors. While all
100 Mbps devices are required to support auto-negotiation, most existing
10 Mbps devices do not.
Two other areas where this switch feature can be helpful include when
fibers converters are used in a system (auto-negotiation is not supported
by fiber links) and to eliminate potential incompatibilities in the
implementation of the auto-negotiation by different device vendors.

Wire-speed Switching Fabic

Wire-speed switching fabric:
The switch fabric capacity is a measure of the maximum traffic that a
switch can handle without dropping a packet. Wire speed switching
fabric refers to a switch that can handle the maximum data rate of
the network on each of its ports.

Simple Network Management Protocol

(SNMP)
SNMP:
SNMP, Simple Network Management Protocol, is a TCP/IP protocol used to obtain
statistical information about a device. SNMP software is very popular with network
managers. It allows a network manager to view and modify a wide variety of network
parameters, and also provides a common way to manage many diverse vendor
products utilizing a single Network Management Tool.

IEEE 802.1D Spanning Tree Protocol

IEEE 802.1D Spanning Tree Protocol:
Ethernet infrastructures can be designed to provide redundant
backbone connections for improved fault tolerances. The Spanning
Tree Protocol is to ensure that although multiple paths may exist
between two devices connected to the infrastructure, only a single
path will be used for communications at any one time.
The switch should have the ability to enable and disable this feature
on a per port basis.

Desirable Switch Features

IEEE 802.1p Frame Prioritization
IP address blocking
Restricts traffic to IP Addresses in specific range (down to one)

DHCP Option 82
Limited DHCP Server (for small systems)
Auto-restore of switch config on replacement
Per port broadcast and multicast storm control
Port Trunking for applications with many switches
Various security functions