Running out of IP Addresses, what to do?

Short Circuit

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Jun 2013
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Ohio
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We are installing a contol system with a ControlLogix PLC, PointIO, and 22 PowerFlex drives; only two drives connected at this time.

It is communicating with a customer's system via EtherNet and on startup they gave us four IP addresses to use; one for the PLC, one for the PointIO, and two for the two drives.

But they told us we will have to figure what to do concerring the other 20 drives.

What do you do in a case like this? I have never used EtherNet before so it is all new to me.


Thanks for your help.
 
Short Circuit said:
We are installing a contol system with a ControlLogix PLC, PointIO, and 22 PowerFlex drives; only two drives connected at this time.

It is communicating with a customer's system via EtherNet and on startup they gave us four IP addresses to use; one for the PLC, one for the PointIO, and two for the two drives.

But they told us we will have to figure what to do concerring the other 20 drives.

What do you do in a case like this? I have never used EtherNet before so it is all new to me.xx



Thanks for your help.
Click to expand...


"they" will have to give you addresses for everything since "they" assign them and not you.
 
Keep the drives and point i/o off their network. They should only want to talk to the PLC. Add another Ethernet card to the PLC. Use one for their network, and one for the machine network.
 
Thank you all for your replies.

I understand what you are saying by adding a second network module, the problem is, I think, the customer wants access to all the drives via EtherNet.

Thanks again.
 
Short Circuit said:
the problem is, I think, the customer wants access to all the drives via EtherNet.
Click to expand...
Well, then there are two possible solutions.

1. The customer reserves enough IP addresses for every networked device on the machine and makes sure those addresses will never be automatically assigned by his DHCP server to anything else

2. The customer pays for an industrial VPN router (like this one: http://www.moxa.com/product/EDR-G903.htm or search for other brands/models). This is additional $800 - $1200 or so to the cost of the machine. This way, only one IP address would be required from the customer and everything inside the machine can have IP addresses assigned from the local address pool (usually in 192.168.x.x range). When someone needs to monitor the machine operation, he would have to connect via VPN to that router first.
 
LadderLogic said:
Well, then there are two possible solutions.

1. The customer reserves enough IP addresses for every networked device on the machine and makes sure those addresses will never be automatically assigned by his DHCP server to anything else

2. The customer pays for an industrial VPN router (like this one: http://www.moxa.com/product/EDR-G903.htm or search for other brands/models). This is additional $800 - $1200 or so to the cost of the machine. This way, only one IP address would be required from the customer and everything inside the machine can have IP addresses assigned from the local address pool (usually in 192.168.x.x range). When someone needs to monitor the machine operation, he would have to connect via VPN to that router first.
Click to expand...
Give them access to only the points they want via your programming, ie HMI/OPC. Not sure if it's what they want to see, but a very definite scope of work from them would be very handy to have.
 
Short Circuit said:
Thank you all for your replies.

I understand what you are saying by adding a second network module, the problem is, I think, the customer wants access to all the drives via EtherNet.

Thanks again.
Click to expand...

They can still access the other network through RSLinx. We go "in " through the PLC network ENBT and "out "through the I/O network ENBT. The only pain is that you have to manually enter all of the I/Ps of the second network the first time in.
 
almost absolutely have the networks isolated. As others have suggested having two network cards one for their network and another just specifically for machine control. It is good practice to always have the machine side isolated. I was at a plant that suddenly decided they wanted to be on the same network the PLC, VFD, etc were on. Problem was their PC's or laptops or whatever they were using to connect on the network was causing IP address conflicts, which resulted in unexpected comms loss. So if your situation permits isolate them.
 
This is very simple get the customer to make you a /24 subnet that is a VLAN to their existing network which will give you 254 addresses for equipment.

If the customer has an IT dept that can't accomplish this then they should consider remodeling thier IT dept.
 
The Plc Kid said:
Your link is for a 1:1 NAT translator so that would not work for the OP without him getting more ip addy's from the customer.
Click to expand...

Wouldn't the customer only need to give him 1 IP address which is for their side of the NAT?
Example:
Front side of NAT is 10.0.0.1
Back side of NAT 192.168.1.???
Then he could use all 192.168.1.xxx addresses and the customer only needs to come in on 10.0.0.1 to access the 192.168.1.xxx addresses?
 

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