Scalable fault-tolerant network design for Ethernet-based wide area process control network systems

Providing fault-tolerant Ethernet capability on the large control network systems becomes very important issue. In this paper, we present two efficient scalable fault-tolerant network architecture designs: the "FTE protocol-independent multi-domain approach" and the "layer 2 switch/router-based multi-domain approach", which can efficiently integrate the layer-2-based FTE protocol and the existing standard router fault-tolerant protocols such as Virtual Router Redundancy Protocol (VRRP), Hot Standby Router Protocol (HSRP), and Open Shortest Path First (OSPF). The network designs take into consideration minimizing the control overheads in supporting large network systems, meeting the detection and recovery time requirements of the application regardless of the network size, using COTS redundancy protocols without overall network performance degradation, and justifying the solution cost. The feasibility and performance of our designs are demonstrated through experiment and analysis.