VALIDATING REACHABILITY OF NODES OF A NETWORK OF AN INDUSTRIAL AUTOMATION AND CONTROL SYSTEM

摘要

ABSTRACT A device (D) for validating reachability of nodes of a communication network of an industrial automation and control system (N) comprises: a collector module (C) configured to update a data set including discovered dataflow information (F) by performing the steps of: detecting direct neighbour nodes having a physical connection to a selected node, and updating the data set including discovered dataflow information (F) by adding the selected node and those direct neighbour nodes which have configured logical network constraints matching logical network constraints of the selected node, a repeater module (R) configured to repeat the steps of: selecting a direct neighbour node in the data set including discovered dataflow information (F) and directing the collector module (C) to update the data set including discovered dataflow information (F) using the selected direct neighbour node, and a validation module (V) configured to validate reachability of nodes of the network (N) by comparing the data set including discovered dataflow information (F) with a data set including designed dataflow information (Q) which defines reachability requirements for nodes of the communication network (N). (Fig. 7)