ETHERNET • 109

General

5 ETHERNET

5.1 General

ETHERNET is a technology, which has been proven and established as an effective means of data transmission in the field of information technology and office communication. Within a short time ETHERNET has also made a successful breakthrough in the area of private PC networks throughout the world.

This technology was developed in 1972 by Dr. Robert M. Metcalfe, David R. Boggs, Charles Thacker, Butler W. Lampson, and Xerox (Stanford, Ct.). Standardization (IEEE 802.3) took place in 1983.

ETHERNET predominantly uses coaxial cables or twisted pair cables as a transmission medium. Connection to ethernet, often already existing in networks, (LAN, Internet) is easy and the data exchange at a transmission rate of 10 Mbps or also 100 Mbps is very fast.

ETHERNET has been equipped with higher level communication software in addition to standard IEEE 802.3, such as TCP/IP (Transmission Control Protocol / Internet Protocol) to allow communication between different systems. The TCP/IP protocol stack offers a high degree of reliability for the transmission of information.

In the ETHERNET TCP/IP fieldbus controller developed by WAGO, various application protocols have been implemented on the basis of the TCP/IP stack.

These protocols allow the user to create applications (master applications) with standardized interfaces and transmit process data via an ETHERNET interface.

In addition to a series of management and diagnostic protocols, the protocols MODBUS TCP (UDP) and Ethernet/IP are implemented for control of the module data.

Information such as the fieldbus node architecture, network statistics and diagnostic information is stored in the fieldbus coupler and can be viewed as HTML pages via a web browser (e.g., Microsoft Internet-Explorer, Netscape Navigator) being served from the HTTP server in the controller.

Furthermore, depending on the requirements of the respective industrial application, various settings such as selection of protocols (e.g., TCP/IP, SNMP, etc), watchdog timer, internal clock and security configurations can be performed via the web-based management system. However, you can also load web pages you have created yourself into the controller using FTP.

The WAGO ETHERNET TCP/IP fieldbus coupler does not require any additional master components other than a PC with a network card. The fieldbus coupler can be easily connected to local or global networks using the

WAGO-I/O-SYSTEM 750 ETHERNET TCP/IP