Rockwell, Cisco target new market

London - Rockwell Automation has anounced that its entry, in association with Cisco, into a new market with the supply of managed switches that can help resolve the disparity in the manufacturing environment between the production/control and IT departments regarding the use Ethernet/IP.

Rockwell is expert in the control space and Cisco the IT and Ethernet, according to Clive Barwise, integrated architecture field business leader, Rockwell Automation. Both companies, he said, can collaobrate to help factories’ control and IT staff successfully merge these two areas and get advice on the use of Ethernet.

Rockwell's new modular managed co-branded switch line uses a Cisco switch architecture and feature set, along with configuration tools. This, it said, helps to provide secure integration with the enterprise network. The range is also said to feature setup and diagnostics from within Rockwell's integrated architecture.

The collaboration “assists manufacturers in realising the benefits of a completely integrated network architecture that unites production intelligence with the rest of the enterprise, reliability and quality across the organisation, as well as the deployment and maintenance of security,"  said  Barwise.

“Working in close collaboration with Cisco, Rockwell Automation has created reference architecture – a formal document that details design and implementation guidance and best practices for converged-network architecture. It brings together relevant applications, technologies, and principles, enabling manufacturing and IT organisation departments to successfully collaborate and implement a truly integrated system," he explained.

The partnership also aims to work towards improving the Ethernet/IP standard - Rockwell’s adoption of Ethernet in the control environment and a global open standard that is owned by the Open DeviceNet Vendors Association (ODVA).

The collaboration has been formalised on an international level. Locally, Rockwell Automation and Cisco sales teams are working together to determine the way forward, concluded Barwise.