The future of industrial automation is being shaped by the vision of the Industrial Internet of Things (IIoT). In this vision the controllers, actuators and sensing devices used in manufacturing will be integral components of information networks. Cyber-physical interaction will lead to new products and services that we can’t even imagine today.

If you design industrial networks for food and beverage processors, or if you are an engineer in such a facility, you know that the cost of downtime is high. In fact it’s estimated that if a cabling system fails, the repair and labor costs alone could be 15 to 20 times the cost of the connector or cable itself -- if they can even be fixed at all. Downtime can reach overall costs of $20,000 to $30,000 per hour.

People in many countries take reliable electricity service for granted. That's because over the years large, mature, highly connected electric grids have been built out. They consist of central power stations that deliver power to major load centers via high capacity power lines. These power lines are branched and divided to provide power to smaller industrial and domestic users over the entire supply area.

Rural India might not come to mind when you imagine a modern Smart Grid of Ethernet-based substations. However, that is just what was installed in 2015 in the Northern Indian province of Haryana. Increasing demand for power from both urban and rural customers led the local utility company to extend the electric power system, adding five new substations. At the same time a new Substation Automation System, that is, a new LAN (Local Area Network) design for communication between devices, was implemented for all substations.

What network topology should you recommend for a new plant floor network? What protocol should be used to prevent communication loops between multiple switches? What devices are being added to the network and are they cybersecure? What’s the best way to design a wireless LAN?