Re: [foxboro] network storm

  • From: "Hicks, Gaylon F" <gfhicks@xxxxxxx>
  • To: <foxboro@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
  • Date: Thu, 5 Feb 2009 15:59:52 -0500

Hi Mike,

I am Chicken Little no more!  This happens to be one of my favorite pet
peeves and soapbox issues with the Foxboro mesh network.  Boring
discussion below.

There are things you can do in the switches to reduce your vulnerability
to these network storms.  One is to configure all your broadcast packet
limits on all 100MB ports to 500 packets/second, and if your switches
will support it, implement the Loop Detection Policy (LDP) algorithm.
There is also a multicast packet suppression policy you can implement,
but Foxboro does not officially support that.  And (my personal
favorite) you can implement VLANs to segment your ZCP field bus from
your ZCP Control Network.  Also not officially support, but useful.

One thing we have seen with the ZCPs while doing network storm testing
is that the ZCP/FCM communications start to get sloooooow, and I/O
updates slow down.  Depending on your process, this can be a problem.
We'll probably discuss this issue at the SEUG meeting next week.  Are
you going to make it?  Either way, feel free to give me a call or email
if you want to talk about this in more detail.  

Good luck with everything.

Thanks,
Gaylon Hicks
TVA - Browns Ferry


-----Original Message-----
From: foxboro-bounce@xxxxxxxxxxxxx [mailto:foxboro-bounce@xxxxxxxxxxxxx]
On Behalf Of Michael Jaudon
Sent: Thursday, February 05, 2009 1:27 PM
To: foxboro@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
Subject: [foxboro] network storm

We experienced a first for our plant site today.  We had all
workstations,
on the mesh side of the network, to "smurf" out.  Upon visually checking
our
ZCP270s I noticed that of each of the ZCP270s had gone single with it's
associated FT module gone to red/green.
Looking at the switches...we have 3 sets of switches including the root
switch.  On each of the switches the lights were all flashing rapidly
and in
unison.  It wasn't until we cycled the power on the root switches (one
at a
time) that the network came back.

Talking to our field service rep...he said the situation we had was a
"network storm".  The cause is unknown.

My question is has anyone ever experienced a "network storm" on a mesh
network and if so what caused it?

Our mesh network has been in operation since Oct 2008 and this is the
first
issue we have had with it.

We are running a Mesh Network version 8.4.1.

-- 
Mike Jaudon
Tronox, LLC
Hamilton, MS


 
 
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