As awareness surrounding Internet of Things (IoT) standardization continues to grow, more eyes are being drawn to interoperability and network infrastructure solutions, including time-sensitive networking (TSN). TSN is a standard from the IEEE 802 committee and is designed to solve the need to process raw data in a time-critical fashion in addition to reducing latency and increasing robustness. [IEEE 802 is the Standard for Local and Metropolitan Area Networks and includes 11 parts, including Ethernet and five wireless standards.] To support new capabilities of IoT-enabled infrastructure, designers, engineers, and end users need to rely on time-synchronized and reliable networking.

The Industrial Internet of Things (IIoT) promises a world of smarter, hyper-connected devices and infrastructure where manufacturing machines, transportation systems, and the electrical grid will be outfitted with embedded sensing, processing, control, and analysis capabilities. Once networked together, they'll create a smart system of systems that shares data between devices across the enterprise and in the cloud.

Much of today's network infrastructure is not equipped to handle such time-sensitive data. Many industrial systems and networks were designed according to the Purdue model for control hierarchy in which multiple, rigid bus layers are created and optimized to meet the requirements for specific tasks. Each layer has varying levels of latency, bandwidth, and quality of service, making interoperability challenging and flexibly changing data connections virtually impossible. If you look at why industry adopted the Ethernet in the first place, at that time there were a plethora of proprietary networks. Industrial Ethernet emerged even though the technology solution was not very attractive with co-axial cable and vampire taps, but industry adopted it anyway. That was all because it was a commercial standard, and the economies of scale brought the price down below proprietary solutions.

Today on Ethernet networks, there is a need for functions such as quality of service, which we can think about as paying to get onto a toll road. On the toll road, you expect to get higher performance and a higher likelihood of getting to your destination without getting snarled in traffic jams. But it doesn't guarantee the time from door to door because there may be a number of other devices that are also on the tollway.