Abstract
Today many hybrid (wired & wireless) industrial communication networks with a huge variety of heterogeneous technologies and protocols are present in the manufacturing and automation domain. The increasing requirements regarding e. g., latency, reliability, or determinism create the need for a holistic network management concept in order to assure a network-wide Quality-of-Service (QoS) resource provisioning and the assurance of the admissioned resources. Consequently, a monitoring of the whole network is required to feed the network management system with the needed information about the underlying network processes. Various technical approaches using different methods of extracting the information from network traffic are available for the purpose of QoS parameter observance and measurement at the moment. Therefore, this paper provides a state of the art research about network management and QoS provisioning respectively QoS assurance concepts. In addition, the passive network monitoring approach using the flow export technique based on the Internet Protocol Flow Information Export (IPFIX) is investigated for a utilisation in the nowadays industry domain based on a conceptual case study with a wireless protocol. As a conclusion, an evaluation is performed in order to clarify the limits and the overall usability of IPFIX for the monitoring of industrial networks in order to support future network management systems.
Zusammenfassung
Heutzutage sind viele hybride (drahtgebundene & drahtlose) industrielle Kommunikationsnetzwerke mit einer großen Vielfalt an heterogenen Technologien und Protokollen in der Automatisierungstechnik vorhanden. Die steigenden Anforderungen z. B. in den Bereichen Latenz, Zuverlässigkeit oder Determinismus begründen die Notwendigkeit für ein ganzheitliches Netzwerkmanagement Konzept, um eine netzwerkweite Dienstgüte durch Ressourcenbereitstellung und die Prüfung der geplanten Ressourcen sicherzustellen. Folglich wird eine Überwachung des gesamten Netzwerks benötigt, um das Management der Kommunikationssysteme mit den benötigten Informationen über die zugrunde liegenden Netzwerkprozesse zu versorgen. Momentan sind bereits verschiedene technische Ansätze zur Extraktion der Informationen aus dem Netzwerkverkehr verfügbar. Daher stellt dieser Artikel den aktuellen Stand der Technik für die Bereiche Netzwerkmanagement, Ressourcenbereitstellung und Zusicherung dar. Darüber hinaus wird der Internet Protocol Flow Information Export (IPFIX) Ansatz auf eine Verwendung im heutigen industriellen Umfeld untersucht und für eine konzeptionelle Fallstudie innerhalb einer drahtlosen Kommunikationsarchitektur verwendet. Zum Schluss wird eine Bewertung von IPFIX durchgeführt, welche die Grenzen der Lösung aufzeigt und die gesamte Nutzbarkeit für die Überwachung von industriellen Kommunikationsnetzwerken und das zukünftige Netzwerkmanagement evaluiert.
Funding source: Bundesministerium für Bildung und Forschung
Award Identifier / Grant number: 16KIS0572
Award Identifier / Grant number: 16KIS0266
Funding statement: This work was partially funded by the German Federal Ministry of Education and Research as part of the research projects “Future Industrial Network Architecture” (FIND: 16KIS0572) and “Innovative Technologies for Low-Latency Wireless Closed-Loop Industrial Automation Systems” (HiFlecs: 16KIS0266).
About the authors
Marco Ehrlich received a Master of Science degree in Information Technology from the Ostwestfalen-Lippe (OWL) University of Applied Sciences in Lemgo, Germany, in 2017 as the year’s best student. Since 2014 he is working as a research assistant in the working group Computer Networks of Prof. Jürgen Jasperneite at the Institute Industrial IT (inIT) in Lemgo, currently starting as a PhD candidate. His research interests are focused on cyber security regarding network configuration and management, especially in the industrial automation domain.
Arne Neumann was busy in the field of development, standardization, and certification of industrial communication systems after receiving his Dipl.-Ing. degree in Electrical Engineering from the Otto-von-Guericke-University Magdeburg, Germany, in 1993. In 2015 he joined the working group of Prof. Jürgen Jasperneite at the Institute Industrial IT (inIT) where his research domain is about hybrid industrial networks and network management.
Alexander Biendarra received a Bachelor of Science degree in Computer Engineering from the Ostwestfalen-Lippe (OWL) University of Applied Science in Lemgo, Germany, in 2014. Since then he is working as a research assistant in the working group Computer Networks of Prof. Jürgen Jasperneite at the Institute Industrial IT (inIT). His current research interest includes time sensitive networking for the industrial automation domain.
Jürgen Jasperneite received a Dr.-Ing. degree in electrical engineering and information technology from the Otto-von-Guericke-University of Magdeburg, Germany, in 2002. He is a full professor of computer networks at the Ostwestfalen-Lippe (OWL) University of Applied Sciences and the founding director of the Institute Industrial IT (inIT) as well as the Fraunhofer Anwendungszentrum Industrial Automation in Lemgo, Germany. He is one of the main initiators of the Centrum Industrial IT, which is Germany’s first science-to-business center in the field of industrial automation. He initiated the SmartFactoryOWL, which is a research and demonstration factory for ICT-based automation technologies operated by Fraunhofer and the OWL University. His current research interests include distributed real-time systems, especially in the domain of intelligent automation.
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