Hi,

You'll probably not find anything in our protocols related to PRP or HRP, as it is not a "communication" protocol, but a descritpion of how to manage redundancy.

Usually, we let this management to hardware products like Moxa as it requires as double network attachment.
https://www.pcvuesolutions.com/usa/images/products/moxa/Moxa_White_Paper---Enabling_Efficient_and_Visually_Represented_PRP_HSR_Network_Management.pdf

Could you give more details about your project/context ?

Hello Florent,

Thank you so much for the information/feedback,
From the diagram, I assumed it is a communication protocol because, from the diagram, there is a driver that manages the redundancy.

Anyway, this customer posed the question to know the availability of PRP within PcVue. Now I know that we can use a third-party hardware product to better manage it. I will ask for more details from the user and share them here if he provides them.

Thanks

Hi,

After some discussion with a customer and searching on Internet, PRP/HSR would usually come with IEC61850 devices.
First of all, could someone confirm if the SI you've been in contact with, for some IEC61850 project was relying on a PRP/HSR architecture?
The customer is mentioning some IEC61850 stack with native PRP management but I am unable to say if this statement is true or how about the one embedded in our SCADA.

Let's take the architecture in Moxa's documentation as a base.

What I understand from the end user requirements is for PcVue to be connected on both LAN and able to reach all the devices with 'IED' label, thus 3 in total.
What is confusing in the customer's schema, is they are representing IEDs not with a dual link in a ring but as independent connections, meaning there are 2 IPs available.
If 2 IP addresses for 1 IED, PcVue cannot achieve a redundancy on the device level as we can only give 1 IP address and no backup one.

Again, in this architecture, having 2 IPs for PcVue, without management server, seems to be an issue, in my opinion.
What do you think about it?

Thanks
Regards
Edouard

PcVue can be used on a network with PRP or HSR. As noted, it is popularized in the IEC 61850 space where no data loss is a must.
PRP and HSR are 'just' 2 technologies with double-attachment of communication partners to the network. Red-boxes do their work and de-duplicate messages, IEDs are seen with a single IP address, IEC 61850 messages are received once by PcVue even if they were transmitted via 2 separate network paths.
PRP/HSR have no impact on our data acquisition driver, it does not have to be part of our driver's stack, but it requires compatible hardware. Moxa used to sell IEC 61850 computers comprising network cards supporting the double-attachment, and they have a range of switches supporting it.
Best regards

Hi Kantha,

In a nutshell, IEC-61850 is a power-oriented standard that covers several technical topics:

1. Environment for immunity against electromagnetic perturbations (due to location where are installed devices) - this topic impacts physical devices design,

2. Networking to allow redundant networking communication without recovering time in case of failure. (In common Spanning-Tree based redondancy protocols, time (between tens of seconds and some tens of mlilliseconds) is required to activate blocked paths and update switching MAC table in case of failure - this time is named "recovery time"). This topic impacts only L2 (Ethernet) network level.
Here are used PRP and HSR architectures that use operation described by Benoit: an IEC-61850 device sends message in both PRP or HSR ways to the networks. When messages arrive to the destination, then the second arrived message is discarded by IEC-61850 destination device.
IEC-61850 device can be

• - End-device (IED, specialized computer like Moxa DA-820 with PRP/HSR extension card) that supports PRP and/or HSR connection => that means it has 2 dedicated network interfaces to be connected into PRP or HSR architecture.
• - Redbox (like Moxa PT-G503) If end device does not support PRP/HSR. Then end device is connected to Redbox to "inject" end device trafic into PRP/HSR network.

[/*]

PcVue configuration is not impacted at all by this topic. That's the reason why there is no available settings for HSR/PRP in PcVue.

3. Application communication with dedicated message structure (GOOSE, SV or MMS). This point is managed by PcVue. It is the same communication level than Modbus, Bacnet...etc protocols.

Hope this will help you to understand this topic.

Best Regards.

Thank you Benoît and Pierre-Edouard.

We answered to the customer fully inspired by your posts.
If they are able to get or provide a PRP/HSR architecture, we would be pleased to demonstration it.

Regards
Edouard

Hi Edouard.

thank you for your feedback.
If required we've in head office 2 Moxa's Redbox to create PRP/HSR architecture.
We also have PT-7528 switch that can manage GOOSE and MMS messages (it can be IEC-61850 monitored).

Cheers.
Pierre-Edouard.