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Tutorial on Parallel Redundancy Protocol (PRP)

Prof. Hans Weibel
Zurich University of Applied Sciences
Institute of Embedded Systems (InES)
CH-8401 Winterthur, Switzerland
[email protected]

Abstract
High availability applications typically count on the
networks ability to reconfigure in case of a failure.
The Parallel Redundancy Protocol (PRP) follows a
different approach from the well-known reconfiguration
protocols. It makes use of two independent Ethernet networks.
Frames are replicated by the sending node and transmitted over both
networks. Duplicates are discarded by the receiving node. There is no distinction
between a working and a backup path.
The basic operation principles of PRP are outlined in this paper. This part is based
on the standards document.
Implementation issues are based on experiences gained on R&D projects, i.e. prototype
implementations of an end node for Linux, of a Redundancy Box in hardware, and a
redundancy manager application.

Table of Contents

1 Introduction to high-availability Ethernet protocols 2
2 PRP principle of operations 3
2.1 Network and network elements 3
2.2 Structure of a DAN 4
2.3 Communication between SANs and DANs 4
3 Methods for handling duplicates 5
3.1 Duplicate accept 5
3.2 Duplicate discard in the link layer 5
3.3 Duplicate discard algorithm 7
3.4 Nodes table 9
4 Network supervision 10
5 Redundancy management interface 12
6 Configuration rules and parameters 12
7 Implementing PRP 13
7.1 Kernel mode variant of PRP software stack 13
7.2 User mode variant of PRP software stack 14
7.3 FPGA-based implementation of a RedBox 14
7.4 PRP redundancy manager 15
7.5 PRP combined with IEEE 1588 synchronization 19
Abbreviated terms and acronyms 20
References 20
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1 Introduction to high-availability Ethernet protocols
Industrial real-time Ethernets typically demand for much higher availability and uninterrupted
operation than office Ethernet solutions can provide. Even a short loss of connectivity may
result in loss of functionality, as for example in some automation, vehicular, power generation,
and power distribution systems.
To recover from a network failure, different standard redundancy schemes are proposed and
applied, such as the Rapid Spanning Tree Protocol (RSTP) [3], Media Redundancy Protocol
(MRP) [2], Parallel Redundancy Protocol (PRP) [1], and others.
RSTP can be applied in arbitrary mesh topologies. It implements a distributed computation of
a tree based on path costs and priorities. This tree is the active topology which is established
by blocking bridge ports. In case of failure, the tree is reconfigured, typically within a few
seconds time range.
MRP is restricted to ring topology. A dedicated node, the ring manager, blocks one of its ring
ports in order to establish a line as the active topology. In case of failure, this line breaks into
two isolated lines which are reconnected by de-blocking the previously blocked port.
Reconfiguration time is in the 100 ms range and can be guaranteed.
PRP does, in contrast to the methods described above, not change the active topology. It
operates on two independent networks. Each frame is replicated on the sending node and
transmitted over both networks. The receiving node processes the frame arriving first and
discards the subsequent copy. The PRP layer is responsible for this replicate/discard function
and hides the two networks from the upper layers. This scheme works without explicit
reconfiguration and switchover and therefore does not show a period of unavailability.
The choice of a redundancy protocol depends on the applications tolerance against short
interruptions caused by the switchover. The grace time of a high availability application is
defined as the time the application allows for recovery before taking emergency actions (e.g.
emergency shut-down, fall-back mode). Recovery time after a communication failure must be
shorter than the grace time to pass unnoticed by the application. Critical applications such as
synchronized drives, robot control, power substations, X-by-wire, and others may require a
grace time in the order of 10 ms or less.
An RSTP or MRP reconfiguration includes failure detection, distributed execution of the
reconfiguration algorithm, flushing and re-establishing (learning) the forwarding database
(MAC address tables). The resulting switchover may be too slow for the most demanding
applications. Thats where PRP comes into play.
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2 PRP principle of operations
2.1 Network and network elements
PRP implements redundancy functions in the end nodes rather than in network elements. This
is one mayor difference to protocols like RSTP or MRP. An end node is attached to two
similar LANs of arbitrary topology, which are disjoint and operated in parallel. The LANs must
be laid out so that the two LANs fail independently e.g. redundant LANs must not be powered
out of the same source. No direct connection can be made between the two LANs.
Figure1 depicts the general network as two switched networks, which can have any topology,
e.g. tree, ring or meshed.

Figure 1: PRP redundant network

The two LANs, named LAN_A and LAN_B, are identical in protocol at the MAC level, but they
can differ in performance and topology. Transmission delays may also be different. The LANs
have no direct connection among them and they are assumed to be fail-independent.
In some applications, only availability-critical nodes need a double attachment, while others
do not. In order to meet the specific requirements, PRP defines different kinds of end nodes.

G The Dual Attached Node (DAN) is connected to both LANs.
G Uncritical nodes can be attached to only one LAN and are therefore called Single
Attached Nodes (SAN). SANs that need to communicate with each other are on the
same LAN.
G The Redundancy Box (RedBox) is used when a single interface node has to be
attached to both networks. Such a node can communicate with all other nodes. Since
a node behind a RedBox appears for other nodes like a DAN, it is called Virtual DANs
(VDAN). The RedBox itself is a DAN and acts as a proxy on behalf of its VDANs. The
RedBox has its own IP address for management purposes.

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2.2 Structure of a DAN
Each DAN has two ports that operate in parallel, and that are attached to the same upper
layers of the communication stack through the link redundancy entity (LRE), as figure 2
shows.

Figure 2: Communication between two DANs

When an upper layer protocol sends a frame, the LRE replicates the frame and sends it
through both its ports at nearly the same time. The two frames transit through the two LANs
with different delays. Ideally they arrive at the at the destination node within a small time
frame. When receiving, a nodes LRE forwards the first received frame to its upper layers and
discards the duplicate frame.
The LRE generates and handles duplicates. This layer presents toward its upper layers the
same interface as the network adapter of a non-redundant adapter. The LRE has two tasks:
handling of duplicates and management of redundancy. To supervise redundancy, the LRE
appends to each sent frame a 32-bit redundancy control trailer (RCT) and removes that RCT
at reception.
A DAN has the same MAC address on both ports, and only one set of IP addresses. This
makes redundancy transparent to the upper layers. Especially, this allows the Address
Resolution Protocol (ARP) to work the same as with a SAN.

2.3 Communication between SANs and DANs
SANs can be connected to any LAN. A SAN connected to one LAN can not communicate
directly to a SAN connected to the other LAN. Since SANs do not implement any redundancy
features, DANs have to generate frames that these SANs understand. The condition is
however that the SANs ignore the RCT in the frames, which should be the case since a SAN
cannot distinguish the RCT from IEEE 802.3 padding. Conversely, DANs understand the
frames generated by SANs, since these do not append an RCT. They only forward just one
frame to their upper layers since the SAN traffic uses one LAN only. If a DANP cannot identify
that the remote node is a DAN, it inserts no RCT.
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3 Methods for handling duplicates
Since a DAN receives the same frame over both adapters (if both are operational), it should
keep one and ignore the duplicate. There are two methods for handling duplicates:
G Duplicate accept, in which the sender uses the original frame and the receiver
forwards both frames it receives to its upper protocol layers and
G Duplicate discard, in which the sender appends a redundancy control trailer to both
frames it sends and the receiver uses that redundancy control trailer to filter out
duplicates.

3.1 Duplicate accept
This method does not attempt to discard duplicates at the link layer. The sender sends the
same frame as it would in the non-redundant case over both LANs. The receivers LRE
forwards both frames of a pair (if both arrive) to its upper layers, assuming that well-designed
network protocols and applications are able to handle duplicates (IEEE 802.1D explicitly
states that higher layer protocols have to cope with duplicates).
The internet transport protocols UDP and TCP are assumed to be resilient against duplicates.
The TCP protocol is designed to reject duplicates, so it will discard the second frame of a
pair. The UDP layer is by definition connectionless and unacknowledged. All applications that
use UDP must be capable of handling duplicates, since duplication of frames can occur in any
network. In particular, a UDP frame is assumed to be idempotent, i.e. sending it twice has the
same effect as sending it once. Administrative protocols such as ICMP and ARP are not
affected by duplicates, since they have their own sequence numbering.
Therefore, one can assume that handling of duplicates is taken care of by the standard
network protocols, but one has to check if each application complies with these assumptions
and delivers the expected performance under these conditions.
This simple duplicate accept method has the disadvantage of not providing network
supervision, since it does not keep track of correct reception of both frames.

3.2 Duplicate discard in the link layer
It is advantageous to discard duplicates already at the link layer for the purpose of offloading
the application processor and for improving the redundancy supervision. The LRE can
perform duplicate rejection, possibly with an independent pre-processor or an intelligent
Ethernet controller.
The duplicate discard protocol uses an additional four octet wide field in the frame, the
redundancy control trailer (RCT), which the LRE inserts into each frame that it receives from
the upper layers, as figure 3 shows. The RCT consists of the following parameters:
G a 16-bit sequence number
G a 4-bit LAN identifier, 1010 (0xA) for LAN_A and 1011 (0xB) for LAN_B
G a 12 bit frame size

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Appending the RCT could generate oversize frames that exceed the maximum frame size
allowed by IEEE 802.3-2005. To maintain compliance with the IEEE 802.3-2005 standard, the
communication software in a DAN using RCT shall be configured for a maximum payload size
of 1496 octets.

Figure 3: Frame extended by an RCT

Each time the link layer sends a frame to a particular destination the sender increases the
sequence number corresponding to that destination and sends the (nearly) identical frames
over both LANs.
The receiving node can then detect duplicates based on the RCT.
To allow the receiver to distinguish easily frames coming from nodes that obey to the PRP
from the non-redundant ones, the sender appends to the frame the length of the link service
data unit (LSDU) in octets in the 12-bit frame size field. In VLANs, frame tags may be added
or removed during transit through a switch. To make the length field independent of tagging,
only the LSDU and the RCT are considered in the size.
The receiver scans the frames starting from the end. If it detects that the 12 bits before the
end correspond to the frame size, and that the LAN identifier matches the identifier of the LAN
it is attached to, the frame is a candidate for rejection.
Since short frames need padding to meet the minimum frame size of 64 octets, the sender
already includes the padding to speed up scanning from behind, as figure 4 shows.

Figure 4: Padded frame extended by an RCT

A special situation has to be considered: A sender generates a VLAN tagged short frame
padded to the size of 64 octets. This frame transits an intermediate node where the tag is
removed and therefore a second padding after the RTC is applied, as depicted in figure 5. If
the minimum size of a VLAN tagged frame is set to 68 octets instead of 64, this situation
should never happen.

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Figure 5: Dual padded frame extended by an RCT as it can be seen by the receiver

3.3 Duplicate discard algorithm
The receiver assumes that frames coming from each source that obeys to the PRP are sent in
sequence with increasing sequence numbers. The sequence number expected for the next
frame is kept in the variables ExpectedSeqA, resp. ExpectedSeqB.
At reception, the correct sequence can be checked by comparing ExpectedSeqA, resp.
expectedSeq with the received sequence number in the RCT, currentSeq. Regardless of the
result, expectedSeq is set to one more than currentSeq to allow checking the next expected
sequence number on that line.
Both LANs thus maintain a sliding drop window of contiguous sequence numbers, the upper
bound being expectedSeq (the next expected sequence number on that LAN), excluding that
value, the lower bound being startSeq (the lowest sequence number that will lead to a discard
on that LAN) as figure 6 shows for LAN_A.

Figure 6: Drop window (for LAN_A)

After checking the correct sequence number, the receiver decides whether to discard the
frame or not. Assuming that LAN_A has established a non-void drop window, a frame from
LAN_B whose sequence number fits into the drop window of A will be discarded (dropB on
figure 6). In all other cases, the frame is kept and forwarded to the upper protocol layers
(keepB on figure 6).
Discarding the frame (dropB on figure 6) shrinks the drop window size on LAN_A since no
more frames from LAN_B with an earlier sequence number are expected, thus startSeqA is
increased to one more than the received currentSeqB. Also, the drop window on B is reset to
a size of 0 (startSeqB = expectedSeqB), since obviously LAN_B lags behind LAN_A and no
frames from LAN_A should be discarded, as figure 7 shows.
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Figure 7: Drop window reduction after a discard

In the situation of figure Figure 8, if several frames come in sequence over the same LAN_A,
but none on LAN_B, they will be kept since their currentSeq is outside the drop window of
LAN_B, and the drop window of LAN_A grows by one position. If frames keep on coming over
LAN_A but not LAN_B when the maximum drop window size is reached, startSeqA is also
incremented to slide the drop window.
When a received frame is out of the drop window of the other LAN, it will be kept and the drop
window of that line is reduced to a size of 1, meaning that only a frame from the other line
with the same sequence number will be discarded, while the drop window of the other line is
reset to 0, meaning that no frame will be discarded, as figure 8 shows.

Figure 8: Frame from LAN_B was not discarded

The most common situation is when the two lines are synchronized and both drop windows
are reduced to 0, meaning that the first frame to come next will be kept and the drop window
will be opened by one to allow only a frame with the same sequence number as the one
already received, as figure 9 shows.

Figure 9: Synchronized LANs

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The sequence counter has 16 bits, which allows a drop window size of 32768, a size large
enough so that even under the worst case network delays and highest frame rate the
sequence numbers do not wrap-around.
There is no change to this algorithm when frames arrive out of sequence. This can happen if
layer 2 prioritization is applied.
Because of the LAN identifier field in the RCT, the duplicate frames differ in one bit (and in
the FCS). The receiver checks that the frame comes from the correct LAN. It will not reject a
frame that comes from the wrong LAN, since this could be a legitimate frame which happens
to have the length information in its last 12 bits, but it will count an error cntWrongLanA or
cntWrongLanB since this could hint at a configuration error. Since this kind of error is
permanent, it will be detected rapidly.

3.4 Nodes table
A node shall maintain a table with an entry for each node (SAN or DAN) to which it sends or
from which it receives frames. The nodes tables purpose is to support the discard algorithm
and allow for network integrity monitoring. The table will contain one row for each unicast,
multicast, and broadcast address this node is sending to. Table 1 lists the entries maintained
per destination.

Parameter Description
sendSeq a 16-bit sequence number used by this node for sending to that
remote node or multicast or broadcast address (wrapping through
zero)
expectedSeqA
expectedSeqB
for each adapter A and B, a 16-bit sequence number indicating the
sequence number used last by the remote node to communicate
with this node on that LAN, incremented by one (wrapping through
zero)
cntErrOutOfSequenceA
cntErrOutOfSequenceB
for each adapter A and B, a 32-bit error counter indicating that a
frame from the remote node was not received in sequence over that
LAN
startSeqA
startSeqB
for each adapter A and B, a 16-bit cursor that limits the drop window
cntReceivedA
cntReceivedB
for each adapter A and B, a 32-bit counter indicating the number of
frames received over the adapter
cntErrWrongLanA
cntErrWrongLanB
for each adapter A and B, a 32-bit counter indicating the number of
mismatches on each adapter
timeLastSeenA
timeLastSeenB
for each adapter A and B, a time field indicating when this node
received last a frame from the remote node
sanA
sanB
for each adapter A and B, a boolean indicating that the remote node
is probably a SAN and/or that the remote node uses Duplicate
Accept
Table 1: Nodes table entries

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4 Network supervision
The health status of each LAN and its attached devices (end nodes and switches) must be
monitored, otherwise redundancy helps little.
The receiver checks that all frames come in sequence and that frames are correctly received
over both channels. It maintains error counters that network management can read.
To this effect, all senders and receivers maintain tables of nodes with which they
communicate that record the last time a frame was sent or received from that node and other
protocol information.
At the same time, these tables allow to establish connections to synchronize the sequence
numbers and detect sequence gaps and missing nodes.
Since the protocol is loosely connection oriented, the sequence numbers corresponding to
non-existent nodes must be cleaned up.
Supervision relies on each DAN sending periodically a supervision frame that allows checking
the integrity of the network and the presence of the nodes. At the same time, these frames
allow checking which devices are DAN, the MAC addresses they use and which operating
mode they support, duplicate accept or duplicate discard.
Figure 10 and 11 depict the untagged and the tagged supervision frame format and the
individual fields of the supervision frames are explained in table 2.

Offset Length 0 7 8 15
0 6 PRP_DestinationAddress (multicast 01-15-4E-00-01-XX)
6 6 PRP_SourceAddress (MAC address of the DAN)
12 2 Type (0x88FB for PRP)
14 2 PRP_Ver
16 2 PRP_TLV.Type = 20 or 21 PRP_TLV.Length = 12
18 6 PRP_SourceMacAddressA (MAC address A of the DAN)
24 6 PRP_SourceMacAddressB (MAC address B of the DAN)
30 2 PRP_TLV.Type = 30 or 31 PRP_TLV.Length = 6
32 6 PRP_SourceMacAddressA (MAC address A of the RedBox or VDAN)
38 22 padding to 64 octets
60 2 SequenceNr
62 2 LAN = A or B LSDU_Size = 46
64 4 FCS
Figure 10: Supervision frame format (untagged)

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Offset Length 0 7 8 15
0 6 PRP_DestinationAddress (multicast 01-15-4E-00-01-XX)
6 6 PRP_SourceAddress (MAC address of the DAN)
12 2 Type (0x8100 for VLAN)
14 2 prio cti VLAN Identifier
16 2 Type (0x88FB for PRP)
18 2 PRP_Ver
20 2 PRP_TLV.Type = 20 or 21 PRP_TLV.Length = 12
22 6 PRP_SourceMacAddressA (MAC address A of the DAN)
28 6 PRP_SourceMacAddressB (MAC address B of the DAN)
34 2 PRP_TLV.Type = 30 or 31 PRP_TLV.Length = 6
36 6 PRP_SourceMacAddressA (MAC address A of the RedBox or VDAN)
42 18 padding to 68 octets
60 2 SequenceNr
62 2 LAN = A or B LSDU_Size = 46
64 4 FCS
Figure 11: Supervision frame format (tagged)

Parameter Description
PRP_DestinationAddress reserved multicast address 01-15-4E-00-01-XX (XX is
00 by default, but if conflicts arise, XX can be
configured to take any value between 0x00 and 0xFF)
PRP_SourceAddress MAC address of the sending node
PRP_Ver protocol version, set to 0 (zero) for this version of PRP
first PRP_TLV entry (Type, Length, Value)
PRP_TLV.Type indicates the operation mode: Duplicate Discard (value
20) or Duplicate Accept (value 21)
PRP_SourceMacAddressA
PRP_SourceMacAddressB
MAC address used by each port (these addresses are
identical, except if address substitution is used)
second PRP_TLV entry (Type, Length, Value), used by RedBoxes only
PRP_TLV.Type indicates whether the supervision frame belongs to a
RedBox (value 30) or a VDAN (value 31)
Remark: The DAN itself does not send supervision
frames, but the corresponding RedBox does it as a proxy
on behalf of all VDANs connected to it.
PRP_SourceMacAddressA MAC address A used by the respective RedBox or a
VDAN
SequenceNr sequence number used for network supervision frames
LAN LAN over which this supervision frame is sent
LSDU_Size size of the LSDU (always 46, independent if tagging is
used or not)
Table 2: Supervision frame fields
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5 Redundancy management interface
Redundant devices and links are useless without network management supervising this
redundancy and calling for maintenance actions.
The LRE presents a network management interface that allows to track the health state of
each LAN, and especially to detect failures early when the error rate increases. To this effect,
the LRE keeps for each adapter (each LAN) a counter of received messages and of messages
received with an error.
PRP defines an SNMP MIB for this purpose.
A network management tool is preferably a DAN and can access nodes and switches as if
they all would belong to the same network. Especially, network management implemented in a
DAN is able to see SANs connected to either LAN.

6 Configuration rules and parameters
Within a PRP network, the following rules should be followed:
G The network shall consist of two fail-independent LANs that have similar properties,
i.e. each LAN is able to carry the traffic that would exist in the absence of redundancy.
G Both adapters A and B of a DAN shall be configured with the same MAC address.
G LAN_A plus LAN_B constitute an IP subnet. The IP addresses of all nodes and
switches within this subnet shall be unique and share the same prefix. The
redundancy scheme shall be transparent to the IP layer, i.e. a DAN shall have the
same IP address when seen from either LAN_A or LAN_B.
G All nodes in the network shall be configured to operate with the same multicast
address for the purpose of network supervision.
G All DANs shall be configured with the same LifeCheckInterval.
Table 3 describes the PRP parameters and their default value.

Parameter Description Default value
LifeCheckInterval how often the presence of a node is checked 2 000 ms
NodeForgetTime time after which node entry is cleared 60 000 ms
LinkTimeOut time after which a link is considered lost 6 000 ms
DropWindowMax max size of drop window 32 768
Table 3: PRP Parameters
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7 Implementing PRP
PRP can be implemented in different ways, depending on where duplicates are handled:
G On the driver level: This variant provides efficient handling transparent to the
application.
G On the application layer: This variant is less efficient but easier to observe and debug.
It is available as open source software under BSD-like license.
G In hardware: Such a solution does not consume computing resources of the host
processor to run the discard algorithm.
The Institute of Embedded Systems (InES) of the Zurich University of Applied Sciences plays
an active role in the area of real-time Ethernet since years. Its R&D activities result in a series
of portable protocol implementations for real-time, synchronization, and redundancy functions.
With respect to PRP, the following basis is offered [6]:

7.1 Kernel mode variant of PRP software stack
A software PRP implementation may be designed as an intermediate layer that communicates
with the upper layers by a virtual network device (PRP Driver). This layer presents towards its
upper layers the same interface as a non-redundant network device (see figure 12).
By communicating over the PRP interface, the existence of the two real interfaces is hidden
from the operation system and the upper layers. It intercepts the normal frame flow. It grabs
all frames coming from the two interfaces and checks whether to forward the frames to the
upper layers or not (discard algorithm). For the operation system, it seems like the frames are
coming from the virtual PRP interface. In the sending path, the operation system will send the
frames to the virtual PRP interface, which will duplicate the frames and send them to
respective interfaces.

Figure 12: Kernel mode variant of PRP software stack

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7.2 User mode variant of PRP software stack
For the evaluation of the PRP stack, an open source software is provided for Linux (see figure
13). The code covers the handling of the duplicates as well as the supervision functions.
Thanks to the user mode execution the algorithms can easily be traced and tested.
Note: For operational use the kernel variant of the PRP stack is recommended for
performance reasons.

Figure 13: User mode variant of PRP software stack

7.3 FPGA-based implementation of a RedBox
The Redundancy Box (RedBox) is a three port switching device to connect conventional
nodes (with only one network interface) to both LANs of a PRP network. It has one port to
each LAN and one to the VDAN network
Because VDANs appear to the other nodes of the network like dual attached nodes (DAN)
they are called virtual dual attached nodes (VDAN). The mechanism of duplicate generation
und duplicate rejection is completely transparent to the VDAN. The RedBox completely
mimics the nodes connected behind it and multicasts supervision frames on their behalf.
For management purposes the redundancy box itself is a DAN with an IP address of its own.
The implementation is an FPGA-based system on chip, containing three 100 Mbps duplex
MACs, frame buffering and switching, and duplicate discard algorithm in hardware.
Performance is at wire speed. For supervision and management functions, a processor core is
included.
An alternative set-up is to use the RedBox code for a single VDAN implemented on the same
device. Application code can be executed on the integrated processor core.

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7.4 PRP redundancy manager
Spending redundant infrastructure to a network can significantly improve availability if failures
are detected and repaired quickly. This requires an adequate redundancy monitoring tool.
InES has developed such an SNMP management application with the following properties:
G Manager is connected to both LANs (i.e. is itself a DAN)
G Automatic discovery of network configuration (by observing supervision frames of
DANs and VDANs and by scanning an IP address range to find SDANs)
G Support of all PRP defined node types and managed objects
G Graphical user interface provides overview of all nodes and their status in different
views
a) Views
The general overview shows all detected and/or manually configured nodes as depicted in
figure 14. The upper region shows SANs connected to LAN_A (with an inactive node SAN
2). The bottom region shows SANs connected to LAN_B. In between located are DANs,
VDANs and their associated RedBoxes. PRP Node 1 shows a failure in its interface to
LAN_A and the LAN_A interface of the RedBox is in maintenance state.

Figure 14: General network overview
A specific node can be selected to display this nodes view of the network. Figure 15
describes how PRP Node 1 sees the network. Since it has failure in the interface to
LAN_A it can only access DANs/VDANs with an operational interface to LAN_B plus SANs
connected to LAN_B.
Zooming into a specific node allows to display all its values and properties (see figure 16).

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Figure 15: Network view as seen by a selected node (the blue one is selected)

Figure 16: GUI dialogues; DAN values (left) and nodes table (right)

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b) Configuring manager and nodes

Figure 17: PRP Manager settings Window

Figure 18: DAN settings Window
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c) Management Information Base (MIB) OID tree

Figure 19: PRP managed objects and their identifiers
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7.5 PRP combined with IEEE 1588 synchronization
High availability requirements often go together with real-time and synchronization
requirements. The operational principle of the commonly used Precise Time Protocol (PTP)
[4] is to measure the path delay of synchronization messages. Combining PTP with PRP leads
to the problem that PRP hides the use of two networks to the upper layers. For PTP, this
attempt is not permissible, because it matters on which network a path delay measurement
takes place.
InES has proposed a solution to combine both PRP and PTP and has demonstrated a
prototype on the occasion of the ISPCS 2007 in Vienna [5].
PHY
TSU
MAC
MII
NIC X
Ethernet
PHY
TSU
MAC
MII
NIC Y
Driver Y Driver X
Frame Data
PRP Stack, "Driver"
Frame Data Frame Data
TS Data Frame Data TS Data
Frame Data
TS Data TS Data
PTP Stack
All other
applications
Frame Data
Merged Frame Data
LAN B LAN A
port 2 port 1
HOST
Ethernet
Time
Time,
Offset,
Drift
Time,
Offset,
Drift

Figure 16: Implementation of the multiport-clock model combines PRP with PTP
The multi-port model was implemented on a Linux PC equipped with two IEEE 1588 enabled
network interface cards (see figure 16). There is only one PTP instance running, but with two
ports. In general, it behaves like a boundary clock, but with the specialty that it will never
have one port in the slave and the other one in the master state. This means that the clock is
actually running in slave only or master only mode. The detection of a failure is crucial but the
IEEE 1588 defined Best Master Clock algorithm can be used for this purpose.

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Abbreviated terms and acronyms
ARP Address Resolution Protocol
DAN Double attached node
FCS Frame Check Sequence, IEEE 802.3 cyclic redundancy check
IP Internet Protocol
LAN Local Area Network
LSDU Link Service Data Unit
MAC Medium Access Control
MIB Management Information Base
MRP Media Redundancy Protocol
OID Object Identifier
OUI Organizational Unique Identifier, allocated by IEEE
PDU Protocol Data Unit
PRP Parallel Redundancy Protocol
PTP Precision Time Protocol, according to IEEE 1588 [4]
RCT Redundancy Control Trailer
RSTP Rapid Spanning Tree Protocol, according to IEEE 802.1D [3]
SAN Single Attached Node
SNMP Simple Network Management Protocol
VDAN Virtual Doubly Attached Node
VLAN Virtual LAN, according to IEEE 802.1Q

References
[1] IEC 62439, Committee Draft for Vote (CDV): Industrial communication networks: high availability
automation networks, chapter 6, entitled Parallel Redundancy Protocol, April 2007.
[2] IEC 62439, Committee Draft for Vote (CDV): Industrial communication networks: high availability
automation networks, chapter 5, entitled Media Redundancy Protocol based on a ring topology,
April 2007.
[3] IEEE 802.1D-2004, Standard for Local and Metropolitan Area Networks: Media Access Control
(MAC) Bridges, chapter 17, June 2004.
[4] IEEE P1588/ D1, Draft Standard for a Precision Clock Synchronization Protocol for Networked
Measurement and Control Systems, June 2007.
[5] Hans Weibel, Sven Meier IEEE 1588 applied in the environment of high availability LANs,
International IEEE Symposium on Precision Clock Synchronization for Measurement, Control and
Communication, October 2007, Vienna
[6] http://ines.zhaw.ch/prp