Industrial Network Infrastructure

The industrial business sector is evolving, for this reason, organizations need to upgrade their network infrastructure and connectivity between industrial assets, local, central applications, and systems. As they adapt, challenges arise from multiple domains, such as traffic visibility, network security, and performance.

Cable Troubleshooting Example

Another job and another example of an Ethernet coupler causing challenges.

In this case, we upgraded some old 10/100Mb switches to 1 Gb switches. As part of my methodology, I typically get all the devices connected in, make sure everything is up and running, then clear the port statistics (when possible), check the ports for speed/duplex and errors after a minimum of an hour or so of operation.

You can do this via CLI, web interface, customized scripts or SNMP. As long as you can reliably collect the data, you are in good shape. Don’t forget to document how you gathered the data, date, time, and collection period.

Wireshark File Merge

For those of you familiar with my articles, who worked with me, or who attended any of my sessions, you will quickly notice that I am not one for long flowery speeches. In my classes, I don’t start with the history of technology or networking and pretty well dive right in.

WiFi or LAN Traffic?

 I was working with a client on their proposed new laptop build and they brought up the topic of WiFi vs Lan. For those who are not familiar, we were wondering how does the laptop behave if it is connected to the network via WiFi, and then you connect the ethernet port, docking station or similar dongle.

Wireshark Windows Adapter Issue and Fix

I was trying to capture packets from my Network Critical SmartNA packet broker and only saw broadcast packets.

At first, I blamed the packet broker since I assumed I knew my laptop and Wireshark so well. Do you know what they say about the word 'assume'? ;)