Index Dedicated Systems Magazine 00q1 on NETWORK

Index Dedicated Systems Magazine 1Q00

Editorial
By Martin Timmerman, Chief-Editor of Dedicated Systems Magazine, Dedicated Systems Experts.
NETWORK - 00q1 - p. 3
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MARKET

An Architectural Foundation for Net-Centric Computing
Almost overnight, the "Net" has grown from cult status to mission-critical backbone of mainstream com-puting. Five years ago, for example, setting up a corporate web site was a relative novelty. Today, many businesses do most of their retail sales, as well as much of their business-to-business commerce, over the Net. And yet, the Net's remarkable growth has just begun.

By Brent Daniel, Senior Technology Analyst, QNX Software Systems Limited.
NETWORK - 00q1 - p. 6
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The Future of Industrial Networking and Connectivity
Manufacturing and process control systems demand the efficient and reliable transmission of information from measurement and control devices on the plant floor all the way up to applications across the manufacturing enterprise. As worldwide competition, government regulations, and consumer expecta-tions continue to rise, companies must look for more cost effective and efficient means to automate and control their production facilities.

By Chris LeBlanc, Industrial communications product manager, National Instruments.
NETWORK - 00q1 - p. 9
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Virtual Interface Architecture Primer
Traditional operating system interfaces to network hardware prevent application programs from taking advantage of the performance improvements (i.e. high bandwidth and extremely low latencies) of giga-bit-per-second interconnects like Fibre Channel. To eliminate this bottleneck, a group of independent hardware and software vendors have defined the Virtual Interface (VI) Architecture. VI is a standard and extremely efficient way to reduce software overhead between a high-performance CPU/memory sub-system and a high-performance network.
This primer introduces the VI Architecture and provides an overview of the key elements of VI. Using the clustering challenge as an example, it describes how these elements work to provide an efficient way of moving data between applications and network hardware.

By Wilf Sullivan, Product Marketing Manager, DY 4 Systems Inc.
NETWORK - 00q1 - p. 12
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IP over IEEE-1394:Using the Internet Protocol over a high-performance serial bus
There is a wide variety of communication systems currently available on the market, and each one offers its own advantages and inconveniences when compared to its counterparts. Powerful IEEE-1394 connectivity implemented with the IPv4 protocol is ideal for the straightforward integration of multiple heterogeneous computer platforms, which are often necessary to provide sufficient horsepower for today's demanding applications.
This article will begin by providing background information on need for a flexible protocol and the IEEE-1394 High-Speed Serial Bus. We will then give an overview of its two communication schemes and explain how the IP over 1394 protocol works.

By Romualdo Santamaria, Chief Technologist, Sederta Inc.
NETWORK - 00q1 - p. 19
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All Roads Lead to IPv6
Everybody's talking about it -Business Week, The Economist, Data Communications-and sooner or later, it will impact us in ways we never thought possible. But the Internet Protocol (IP) is here to stay, and before we know it, our world will be totally wired and interconnectivity will be the name of the game.

By Faisal Ahmed, European Business Development Manager, Wind River Systems.
NETWORK - 00q1 - p. 23
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PROTOCOL

The Next Generation Networking Paradigm: Producer/Consumer Model
As today's source/destination-based networks cannot offer the required functionality or accommodate increased traffic, system capabilities and productivity improvements are restricted. Consequently, a new network model - one that provides more functionality, makes more efficient use of bandwidth, and increases information flow, all while reducing traffic on the wire - is needed.
In a discussion of what is needed in the new network model regarding diagnostics, explicit and I/O messaging and throughput, the producer/consumer network model is revealed as the only model avail-able today that can meet the control environment's demanding requirements and allow for future migra-tion. The paper concludes with a discussion of the benefits of the producer/consumer network model, including Multicast and two one-way I/O trigger mechanisms: change-of-state and cyclic I/O produc-tion.

By Patricia A. Murphy, Manager Emerging Technology and Standards, Rockwell Automation Control Systems.
NETWORK - 00q1 - p. 26
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Building a Functional DeviceNet Network
DeviceNet is gathering strength as an international defacto-standard device-level network. There are many sources of information about various aspects of implementing a network, including the specifica-tion itself, training courses and technical bulletins from several vendors. This article is a basic tutorial, discussing all aspects of designing and implementing a control system based on DeviceNet including; control architecture, communication strategies, network wiring, network power configuration, grounding, testing and fault diagnosis.

By Nick Jones, Product Manager, SST.
NETWORK - 00q1 - p. 29
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BUS

PVIC:a transparent full speed PCI to PCI Connection
The PCI bus is widely used as a local bus for both VME / CompactPCI™ processor boards and desktop workstations. The PVIC concept has been developed to allow PCI based processors to be interconnected into clusters on a large distance as well as to allow PCI based I/O cards to be transparently addressed by remote processors. The design concept offers two operating modes, which can be used concurrently: one is a completely transparent access via a memory-mapped architecture using a flexible source and destination page-based memory allocation system. The other one is a full set of advanced features aimed at reducing the transfer and handling time of data. These features are implemented in hardware and include: on-board chained DMA controller, global shared memory functions, intelligent broadcast and multicast cycles as well as global semaphores. These mechanisms will be described and application examples will be discussed.

By J. Bovier, Director of R & D, Creative Electronic Systems..
NETWORK - 00q1 - p. 32
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I2O Message-Passing Protocol with PCI Bus Extensions
An Intelligent I/O (I 2 O) message passing protocol specification with PCI bus extension is now available for embedded designs. This presentation will show how I 2 O building blocks, including the I 2 O real-time operating system (IRTOS), device driver modules (DDMs), and host operating system modules (OSMs) can be used to create a variety of I/O intensive applications including ADSL central office DSLAMs, Web Servers, and real-time applications

By Jason O'Broin, Member of the Server Products Group, Wind River Systems.
NETWORK - 00q1 - p. 36
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ATM

Implementation and Performances Evaluation of Manufacturing Communication System Over ATM
The performance and the architecture of a network interconnecting diverse functions of a Computer Integrated Manufacturing (CIM) are of great importance. Indeed, the majority of these functions have time-critical constraints that must be considered when designing such a network. In this paper, an architecture based on the OSI reference model is presented, along with service elements and protocols, which match the requirements for these constraints. Our architecture is based on ATM (Asynchronous Transfer Mode) and MMS (Manufacturing Message Specification) application layer protocol. In this paper, we study the implementation of an MMS/ATM architecture. Then we evaluate the performance of this implementation from an external and internal point of view.
To increase performance, we offload high overhead MMS functions to a hardware co-processor. Software parts of the architecture, especially the buffer management have been carefully implemented. As a result, we have achieved a better performance than in previously reported MMS implementations.

By Salem NASRI and Brahim Maaref, Ecole Nationale d'Ingénieurs de Monastir, and LSR-IMAG.
NETWORK - 00q1 - p. 43
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Design of an Adaptive Flow Control Algorithm for ATM Networks
This paper presents the design of an Adaptive Flow Control Algorithm for ATM Networks using hard-ware/ software implementation. The renewed interest in such implementation is driven by advances in technologies that support both hardware and software parts in order to handle high complexity and to optimize the performance/cost factor. Exploration of the design architecture has been performed in order to have more efficiency and flexibility. A solution that correctly implements the system functionality while meeting real-time requirements is produced. After simulation and synthesis steps, an ASIC has been implemented by using a CMOS 0.6 µm technology.

By Mohamed ATRI, Ph. D. Student, Faculty of Sciences, Monastir, Tunisia.
NETWORK - 00q1 - p. 49
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SPACE

Kennedy Space Center Upgrades Launch Control Systems for the 21st Century
One of the grandest endeavors ever undertaken by humankind is that of manned space flight. The world's most renowned spaceport is Americas Kennedy Space Center (Cape Canaveral, FL); which
launched legendary space travelers of the Mercury, Gemini, and Apollo programs. The National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) currently maintains a fleet of space Shuttles for all its
manned missions. These Shuttles will be heavily utilized for the construction and servicing of the International Space Station (ISS). The space station will serve as an orbiting laboratory and serve as an outpost for future space exploration. Since much of the technology installed in Kennedy's Launch Control Center (LCC) dates back to the early days of the U.S. space program, an effort is underway to modernize critical launch control systems with an eye toward safety, ease of use, upgradability and cost effectiveness. This article will examine some of the innovative new technologies being deployed and their impact on launch control activities.

By Michael Meagher, Software Engineer, SL Corporation.
NETWORK - 00q1 - p. 53
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Eurosim and its Applications in the European Robotic Arm Programme
In this paper the commercial RT Engineering tool EuroSim will be introduced. EuroSim is used as the primary simulation framework for the ERA Simulation Facility (ESF) programme. Both the European
Robotic Arm (ERA), ERA Simulations Facility and their role in the various development are described. The ESF is used throughout the ERA design, verification and operations phase. In the operational
phase ESF forms one of the key elements for the Mission Preparation and Training Equipment (MPTE). The MPTE will be used throughout the operational of the International Space Station (ISS).