Industrial Ethernet environments are innately different than many of today's high speed data center environments. Ethernet's simple and effective design combined with the relatively low cost of Ethernet hardware, have made it an attractive network design in industrial networks. In Industrial and Manufacturing environments, change is considered disruption to the floor. Most industrial networks are still running at either 10M or 100M with 100BaseFX or 100BaseTX cabling.  In addition to running at these lower speeds, Industrial Ethernet environments often run on older equipment, with many computers often found on the manufacturing floor still operating on Windows 95.

The main reason that Industrial Ethernet environments are different than data center or enterprise environments is that the environment plays a major role in the types of cabling that you can install in your network.  Effectively, the cable and all other network components must be compatible with the environment. Here are some of the considerations taken into account when cabling your visibility infrastructure:

Vibration:
Twisted or bonded pair

Jacket Types:
PVC (Polyvinyl Chloride)
FRNC (Flame Retardant Non-Corrosive)
TPE (Thermoplastic Elastomer)
PUR (Polyurethane)

Ruggedness & Performance:
Abrasion
Cold blend
Cold impact
Crushing
Cut through
High temperatures
Oil resistance
UV exposure
Water immersion

Power & Mounting:
Racks are rarely used in Industrial environments. Instead the solution of choice is a DIN Rail for mounting purposes. The goal in these environments is to have as few moving parts as possible to minimize the risk of a cable coming unplugged or disrupting the network.

DC Power
Power over Ethernet (PoE) or (PoE+)