Industrial Communication Guide

ETHERNET IN INDUSTRIAL USE

A router receives the messages that are to leave the local network and reads the recipient’s address so as to forward the message to the recipient’s network.

Managed switches possess additional intelligence that allows set- tings to be made. For example, individual ports can be deactivated or only certain ports can be interconnected (so-called VLANs).

I am a Hub

I am a Switch

B

B

A

C

A

C

There are currently two standardized versions of the Internet Pro- tocol: IPv4 and its successor IPv6. Each version of the protocol has its own format for the address (see also figure).

The Internet Protocol (IP) and the router as an associated com- ponent The MAC address is sufficient for communication in a local network. A MAC address provides an unambiguous description of the com- ponent, but not the network in which it is located. This function is performed by the IP address, which enables attribution of the component to the local network. If the recipient of the message is not part of the local network, the sender sends the message out of the local network using the IP address. Exit from the local network is enabled by a device called a router.

IPv4 Address

192.168.0.1

IPv6 Address

2001:0DB8:0000:0001:0000:0000:0010:01FF

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