RSLinx Enterprise, Redundancy and Alias Topics

Hi there,

I got a little huge problem with the redundancy concept of AB.

My network consists of 24 CLX61 controllers, each one redundant (twins with RM module). Each controller got 2 network adapters and there for 2 different IPs connected to 2 Ethernet rings.

On top of that I got a Win2008 server also connected to both network rings. The server needs to access the PLC data via OPC.

Usually I would use RSLinx Classic and create one topic for each IP and the proper alias combining the 2 IPs of the controller. If one network ring fails it will automatically switch to the other one and serve the OPC client with the same tag.

Because the data amount is too large for Classic (approx. 30000 datapoints)the handling is done by RSLinx Enterprise where I don't have the possibility to create aliases. That means for now the whole redundancy concept is questionable because the OPC client is not able to filter the data properly.

Is there any alternative solution out there to get alias topics back with the Enterprise solution? Rockwell said no but I still don't want to give up on this.

Thx,
Michael

Hmm, It will be interesting to see what the experts have to say on this one.

My recollection of how ControlLogix redundancy over ethernet worked is:
The primary and secondary controllers swapped IP addresses when a switchover occured. If that's so, an alias topic looking at the secondary address would be pointless. The server pc does not switch topics at all.

Of course, things may have changed since I last looked at it.

mellis said:

Hmm, It will be interesting to see what the experts have to say on this one.

My recollection of how ControlLogix redundancy over ethernet worked is:
The primary and secondary controllers swapped IP addresses when a switchover occured. If that's so, an alias topic looking at the secondary address would be pointless. The server pc does not switch topics at all.

Of course, things may have changed since I last looked at it.

Click to expand...

Indeed they are swapping but as I mentioned every controller got 2 IPs, one for every physical NW ring.

I should also mention that there are also 2 ethernet switches installed for each location (they are quite far apart). In this case they will not swap if the uplink fails for one ring because it still can see the switch.

There for each PLC got the second ethernet card and the Factory Talk Gateway (or RSLinx) is supposed to collect the data from which ever IP it can get it.

I was also thinking about swapping the IPs between the NW cards on the primary controller, is there a chance to set the IP in the logic via SSV or something?

Greetz