Subnetting question

Hi gents,

I am looking for the most economical way to get my all of my machines networked without tying up an astronomical amount of IP addresses. I have been looking into a NAT device but was wondering if I could do this much cheaper by using multiple routers. I am wondering which route you guys would go and why.

Thanks

What exactly are you trying to do?
Do you need to access these devices from a WAN? Do they need to talk to each other?
Do you have concerns about network traffic? What kind of security is involved?

One comment:

Using a NAT will not necessarily reduce the number of IP addresses needed on your plant network. It simply allows you to map IP addresses on your equipment subnet to IP addresses on the plant network instead of changing the IP addresses on the equipment. This is very useful for vendor packages that you can't or don't want to change IP addresses on.

It's difficult to recommend a "way to go" without knowing what you have and what you want. I'm sure you have something specific in mind when you say "get all my machines networked" but you haven't conveyed what exactly that means to you.

Sorry for the vague description. I will do one instance, I have a 1769 L33ER with an IP address of 192.168.1.10, going to an Ethernet switch that has 2 PV+ 1000 with ip's 192.168.1.11 and 192.168.1.12, along with 2 Sick barcode readers with IP's 192.168.1.20 and 192.168.1.21. I would like to be able to connect to these from my office through our network addressing of 192.168.10.xxx. I am unsure how to do this without changing the IP addresses of all the devices on that machine LAN.

I have multiple other machines with the same basic setup, with logix platforms. I have thought about adding another ENBT in the rack just for this purpose but to buy 15 of those is going to be out of the question. So I am coming to you guys to see if there is a cheaper solution.

Thanks

Sorry for the vague description. I will do one instance, I have a 1769 L33ER with an IP address of 192.168.1.10, going to an Ethernet switch that has 2 PV+ 1000 with ip's 192.168.1.11 and 192.168.1.12, along with 2 Sick barcode readers with IP's 192.168.1.20 and 192.168.1.21. I would like to be able to connect to these from my office through our network addressing of 192.168.10.xxx. I am unsure how to do this without changing the IP addresses of all the devices on that machine LAN.

I have multiple other machines with the same basic setup, with logix platforms. I have thought about adding another ENBT in the rack just for this purpose but to buy 15 of those is going to be out of the question. So I am coming to you guys to see if there is a cheaper solution.

Thanks

Yes, you could use a router to communicate from the one subnet to the other.

The advantage the NAT devices have is they can provide routing to only one device on each machine (the PLC) and allow the IO nodes to be hidden. This means you can get by with less IP addresses per machine (potentially only 1).

Big picture question: Why are you trying to limit the number of IP addresses? There are a lot of network best practices that limit the number of IP addresses as a side effect, but very rarely do I see it being necessary for its own sake, if things are set up correctly.

The InHand Networks IR915 Router allows you to perform multi-network NAT operations from LAN to LAN. We also have training programs avaiable for automation technicians such as your self.

http://www.inhandnetworks.com/industrial-4g-router.html