What is BS EN 62439-6 about?
BS EN 62439-6 is the sixth part of the IEC 62439 series that specifies relevant principles for high availability networks that meet the requirements for industrial automation networks.
The IEC 62439 series applies to high-availability automation networks based on the ISO/IEC 8802-3 (Ethernet) technology.
BS EN 62439-6 specifies a recovery protocol based on a ring topology, designed to react deterministically on a single failure of an inter-switch link or switch in the network. Each switch has an equal management role in the network. Double rings are supported.
Who is BS EN 62439-6 for?
BS EN 62439-6 on distributed redundancy protocol for high availability automation networks is useful for:
- Organizations who want to incorporate automation networks
- Designers of automation networks
- Installers of automation networks
- Assessors of compliant devices
- IT experts
Why should you use BS EN 62439-6?
The market needs several network solutions with different performance characteristics and functional capabilities, matching diverse application requirements.
The distributed redundancy protocol (DRP) provided in BS EN 62439-6 defines a high availability network solution based on ISO/IEC 8802-3 and the functions of ISO/IEC/TR 8802-1 for communication link redundancy.
DRP provides a framework for describing the operational behaviour of the switches in a ring topology to detect a single network failure (such as an inter-switch link failure or a ring switch failure) and recover from it within a deterministic recovery time.
Overall, by using the guidelines of BS EN 62439-6 you can detect and recover from failures in the ring topology network in accordance with the DRP protocol.
What’s changed since the last update?
BS EN 62439-6:2010 supersedes EN 62439:2008. BS EN 62439-6:2010 includes the following significant technical changes concerning EN 62439:2008:
- Adding a calculation method for RSTP (rapid spanning tree protocol, IEEE 802.1Q),
- Adding two new redundancy protocols: HSR (High-availability Seamless Redundancy) and DRP (Distributed Redundancy Protocol)
- Moving former Clauses 1 to 4 (introduction, definitions, general aspects) and the Annexes (taxonomy, availability calculation) to EN 62439-1, which serves now as a base for the other documents
- Adding a method to calculate the maximum recovery time of RSTP in a restricted configuration (ring) to EN 62439-1 as Clause 8
- Adding specifications of the HSR (High-availability Seamless Redundancy) protocol, which shares the principles of PRP to EN 62439-3 as Clause 5
