Moxa Joins Avnu Alliance to Advance Industrial Automation with Time-sensitive Networking

Moxa has joined Avnu Alliance, the industry forum driving deterministic capabilities into open, standards-based networking as a promoter member to advance time-sensitive networking (TSN) ecosystem interoperability. Moxa’s joining shows great promise, focusing on working on a truly unified and high-performance network infrastructure that permits all types of traffic to coexist for real-time communication, low latency, and high-reliability requirements in diverse applications.

Moxa and Avnu are also members of the TSN Industrial Automation Conformance Collaboration (TIACC), the industrial industry initiative to drive TSN interoperability. Avnu and other industry protocol organizations and their members, such as Moxa are working towards a jointly agreed and owned test plan for the industrial automation market.

“As one of the pioneers in developing TSN standards, Moxa has committed to collaborating with key industry players and customers to bridge the gap between standard Ethernet and industrial applications and to speed up the cross-vendor interoperability of automation components in automation systems,” said Jack Lin, product manager and project lead of Moxa’s Global TSN Initiative. “Membership in Avnu aligns with our global strategies and our vision for TSN as the network for the future of industrial automation. Avnu and Moxa have many synergies with our work in TIACC and our shared goal of interoperability and coexistence in open, standard networks.”

Moxa is involved in many TSN standardization projects worldwide, including the IEC/IEEE 60802 TSN profile for industrial automation, IEEE 802.1 TSN Task Group, etc., and launched the industry’s first TSN-enabled switch with all ports supporting TSN in 2018. On top of which, Moxa has also dedicated significant effort and commitment to the world’s most significant TSN interoperability testbeds to ensure that TSN solutions are stable and reliable before going to market, which includes:

• Industrial Internet Consortium (IIC) TSN testbed
• Labs Network Industrie (LNI) 4.0 Testbed for TSN
• Edge Computing Consortium (ECC) OPC UA TSN testbed
• Alliance of Industrial Internet (AII) TSN testbed in China
• China Electronics Standardization Institute (CESI) TSN testbed
• Taiwan Institute formation Industry (III) TSN Testbed

As a Taiwan-based company and the newest promoter member company of Avnu, Moxa will take the reach of the interoperability ecosystem further to the Asia Pacific region and across multiple industries. Moxa can now collaborate freely with fellow Avnu members to develop interoperable TSN products and further enable an ecosystem where devices from different manufacturers, which support different automation protocols, will coexist reliably over wired and wireless TSN on a unified network infrastructure for communications at all levels.

“Moxa brings over a half-decade of experience developing TSN infrastructure to the Avnu Alliance, as well as a strong commitment to the APAC region, specifically China and Taiwan, which will help bring Avnu the capacity to expand our reach and community. Moxa also has shown a deep commitment to driving network convergence and interoperability through its work with the TIACC and participation in industry TSN test beds,” said Dave Cavalcanti, President of Avnu Alliance. “We look forward to working together with Moxa to grow the ecosystem of interoperable wired and wireless TSN products that will benefit multiple industries.”

Membership allows Moxa a chance to network and consult with time-sensitive application experts and engineers, discussing best practices for implementation and real-time updates on specifications and testing requirements. Avnu members work together to define conformance and interoperability tests as well as certification programs, ensuring that TSN products are easy to implement and enjoy broad global market appeal.