The Simple Production Network Support Tool For More Secure, Higher Performance And More Efficient Production Control Networks

Discover What the Smartest Control Engineers With Enormous Control Networks, Huge Numbers of Machines and Thousands Of Devices Can’t Live Without!

YOU NEED THIS TOOL IF:

1. Cybersecurity is essential and it’s critical to detect foreign devices on your production control network within 60 seconds.
2. You want to effortlessly detect performance-robbing duplex mismatches and autonegotiation failures.
3. You want to get an up-to-the-minute, accurate asset list for your network.
4. It’s important to know which network segments are overloaded.
5. You need to pinpoint a cable or connector failures quickly.
6. You must be able to verify the firmware versions of a group of identical devices.

There’s a bunch more questions, but you get the idea. If you don’t have those capabilities today, your maintenance techs don’t have the right tools. And, more likely, you have issues with your production control network:

• Your control network doesn’t have the minimum cybersecurity in place OR
• Your control network is inefficient and you probably have excessive network downtime OR
• Your control network is not performing nearly as well as it can OR
• You have all three problems.

Let’s look at these in detail.

Cybersecurity – The VERY first step in securing a product control network is to know every asset in the network. At the very minimum, you need to know what devices you have, their IP address and MacID, their firmware version and the port on the switch where they are connected. This is not a once-a-year task. Every day, people are walking around your production floor, doing who knows what. You need to know immediately when a foreign device is connected to your network.

Performance – Ethernet Production Control Networks work while they’re sick! A sick network still works even with overloaded segments, duplex mismatches, autonegotiation failures, failing cables and connectors and other issues. If you can’t tell if your production control network is sick, you may have hidden performance problems.

Efficiency – Ethernet production control networks are efficient when uptime is high. Every machine is going to have downtime. That can’t be helped. Bearings fail. Valves get stuck. Encoders stop encoding. Mechanical things last until they don’t. All that’s expected. But Ethernet production networks aren’t expected to fail.

But they do:

• A cable is run over.
• A cable is bent beyond its allowable radius.
• A Phy fails in a critical device.
• A connector fails or comes loose.
• A maintenance tech sets a replacement device to the wrong IP address.
• An enterprise floods your network with ARPs or pings and connections are lost.
• An overloaded network segment causes intermittent lost connections.
• IT does a global, enterprise-wide ping that floods your network with traffic.
• Or any one of a hundred other unexpected Ethernet network failures

In an efficient network, your technician first responders have tools to quickly identify and solve these problems and minimize downtime from network issues. Three videos illustrating how first responders can use IntraVUE to solve common problems and minimize downtime.

There Are Lots of Tools You Can Try

You can use many of the free tools that are available to diagnose and solve these kinds of problems. You can run free tools like ping, tracert, ipconfig, netstat, nslookup and a host of others. You can download open-source tools. You might even try the complicated tool your IT uses for network management. But TICK, TICK, TICK – the downtime meter is ticking, the operations VP is fuming and production losses are skyrocketing.

Your choice is straightforward; you can get by with a host of off-the-shelf network tools, use an expensive IT tool that wouldn’t know an EtherNet/IP or ProfiNet device if it tripped over one, or use IntraVUE, wherein the absolute worst case, it pays for itself in the first ½ hour of downtime it saves.

IntraVUE Is a Network Support Tool for Secure, Efficient and High Performing Networks

IntraVUE is a visualization and monitoring application that builds a database of network assets, records network activity and identifies network health issues in a form useable by non-network experts.

IntraVUE Enables Basic Cybersecurity by identifying every asset on the network and alerting on foreign device connections in 60 seconds. It records where, when and how long that foreign device was connected.

IntraVUE Increases Efficiency by enabling 1st responder technicians to quickly identify and correct duplicate IP addresses, incorrect VLAN assignments, bad connectors, failed cables and other causes of network related downtime. Health KPIs let technicians shift from a reactive to a proactive approach to improve network uptime.

IntraVUE Improves Performance by identifying overloaded segments, duplex mismatches, autonegotiation failures and issues that secretly rob network performance.

Designed for ease of installation, minimal training and use by non-network experts, IntraVUE™ automatically detects all Ethernet-connected devices and assembles them into a connection tree map of the physical layer network infrastructure with no impact on network performance.

IntraVUE Network Map

IntraVUE Device Detail

IntraVUE provides a comprehensive, accurate view of an entire Ethernet device architecture for non-technical users. It continuously monitors all OT network switches and devices. It captures & records new devices, devices that are only momentarily connected, that have rebooted, been moved to a different port or different switch or have a new IP address. It identifies all the devices in your network, even those in repeated address segments (behind NATs), connected to an unmanaged switch or those that are part of a VLAN. It builds a set of KPIs: one for your network, one for your switches and one for your critical devices. One glance, and you’ll know what’s starting to fail before it becomes a problem.

IntraVUE KPI Display

The Network Time Machine “Cures Amnesia”!

How often does operations report that something weird happened on the last shift; the machine stopped or slowed down or acted differently? How many times have you been told, “I didn’t touch anything!” The IntraVUE network event log cures that kind of amnesia. The event log tells you what cables were unplugged, what device segments were overloaded, what device dropped a connection or which group of ports on a switch went offline.

And, if you need more expert assistance in understanding the event log, a diagnostic utility provides a detailed examination of all your network activity.

What Does IntraVUE Offer?

Discovering and continuously monitoring all network assets, logging all network activity for later review and a 30-day KPI for your network are the most unique features of IntraVUE.

A No Questions Asked, Astonishing Guarantee!

IntraVUE ENABLES BASIC CYBERSECURITY through its Asset Discovery capabilities.

IntraVUE IMPROVE PERFORMANCE by identifying overloaded segments, duplex mismatches and autonegotiation failures.

IntraVUE IMPROVES EFFICIENCY by enabling your 1st Responders to quickly identify and solve network issues.

IntraVUE saves expensive downtime! The first time a cable or connector fails, you have a duplicate IP address, there is a problem in the middle of the night or any other of the countless possible issues with your machine, you will have the tool you need to diagnose and solve the problem quickly. There is no doubt about it. You’ll save at least a half hour of downtime and pay for the product on your very first network issue.

There is no doubt about it. The product cost is easily worth the first one-half hour of downtime you’ll save. Because IntraVUE pays for itself the first time your network fails, we can make an Amazing, No Questions Asked, Unheard of Guarantee!

Here’s What You Should Do Next

To enable basic cybersecurity, improved performance and increased efficiency, visit https://www.rtautomation.com/intravue/ or contact an application engineer by calling 800-249-1612 or emailing solutions@rtautomation.com.