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See the newest Industrial IoT Solutions from Cisco in this presentation. Cisco’s Industrial IoT Business Unit focuses on providing consistent network architecture for connectivity outside traditional office spaces, covering rugged environments from manufacturing to mines. With two decades in the industrial space, Cisco has grown to be the largest vendor, driven by increasing IT involvement in operational technology (OT) environments, primarily due to cybersecurity and AI readiness. The key is fostering IT/OT collaboration, as these networks serve different use cases but require joint effort for digitization. A recent survey revealed that 48% of customers expect generative AI to significantly impact their industrial environments, leading to new use cases like machine vision, autonomous vehicles, robotics, and edge-to-cloud integrations, all of which have direct implications for network demands.
These evolving industrial use cases present conflicting network requirements. Machine vision systems, now moving towards networked AI-driven models, are driving a rapid increase in PoE port consumption and a demand for 10-gigabit uplinks to handle large data volumes from high-resolution cameras. Concurrently, the emergence of virtual PLCs, where control is decoupled from physical devices and centralized or moved to general-purpose compute on the factory floor, introduces a need for deterministic, ultra-low latency, and jitter-sensitive control traffic. The challenge lies in enabling these diverse demands, such as large video frames and critical control traffic, to share the same network links efficiently and reliably.
To address these challenges, Cisco is launching a new portfolio of industrial switches and redefining wireless support. The new IE 3500 switch, for example, features significantly amped-up PoE budgets, 2.5-gigabit downlinks, and three 10-gigabit uplinks to support vision systems. Crucially, it incorporates Time-Sensitive Networking (TSN) frame preemption to prioritize latency-sensitive control traffic, ensuring deterministic performance alongside high-bandwidth video. In wireless, Cisco is integrating Wi-Fi and ultra-reliable wireless backhaul technologies into a single access point and management system, targeting Wi-Fi 7, Wi-Fi 6E, and industrial portfolios. This unified approach allows for both IT and OT wireless use cases, offering seamless roaming and near-zero packet loss for critical applications like automated guided vehicles, enabling industrial automation and reducing the need for separate, dedicated networks. Additionally, new Industrial IoT solutions include 19 new switch SKUs, including IP67-rated models and a rack mount switch, all moving towards unified management via the Meraki dashboard, alongside security enhancements utilizing AI for automated asset grouping and segmentation in flat industrial networks.
Personnel: Andrea Orioli, Ruben Lobo
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