Firm designs dual network

Network-monitoring solution ensures that all components of the physical infrastructure are working properly.

When Protein Design Labs (PDL), a company that discovers and develops humanized monoclonal antibodies, built a new commercial-scale manufacturing facility in Brooklyn Park, Minn., the IT department knew that the networking system would have to be as robust and effective as the products the company produces. Manufacturing of these products is a detailed science that requires production systems integration through network connectivity, with continuous and precise repeatability.

“As an industry that works in a regulated environment, we have to demonstrate that our systems are in a state of constant control and that we can document how they operate.”

The new facility includes two attached buildings–a lab/office to house administration, engineering, IT, quality and compliance, and a manufacturing/warehouse facility that includes cell culture, “tech corridors” for equipment access, purification processing, utilities, materials distribution, and offices for manufacturing, facilities and manufacturing support.

“We have traditional corporate networking needs and then we have our manufacturing network needs,” explains Tom Lannom, director of engineering for PDL. Therefore, the firm created two networks known as the “corporate network” and “control network.” In order to assure those networks function properly, PDL specified an intelligent network-monitoring solution to provide a real-time picture of all networked devices and their connectivity.

The corporate network is more of a “traditional” network, mainly encompassing data and voice communications for lab and office workstations. The control network is for critical process control, viewed as a utility system to facilitate the communications for many functions, including security, building access, building automation and monitoring.

“In the past, networking for process control and manufacturing was through dedicated, proprietary, low-speed bus topologies. Today, we need more industrial automation and control and need to take advantage of Ethernet protocols,” notes Lannom.

Most of the clients on the control network side are not people, but automated machines. “For example, if we have a valve that needs to open and close in a deterministic amount of time, we need to guarantee that this can happen,” explains Lannom. “When you start throwing in the dynamics of a corporate network that can change from day-to-day, you might lose command of the process capability. The control network needs to be a much more static environment.

Separate and redundant
“In this environment, we have separate switches connected to the separate cross-connect fields for separate bandwidth control,” he explains. The system for both the corporate or control networks are designed so that they are on separate core switches with redundant connectivity to critical system servers, which exist in a topologically central location.

There are redundant fiber feeds and pathways from the core switches to field switches, which are located in distributed telecom closets as physical backup core switches. If a field switch goes down, only the area served by that switch is affected. If a core switch goes down, the entire network operation is maintained.

“The whole idea is to protect and stabilize the bandwidth utilization on the process-control side,” states Lannom. Together with Dell-Comm, a system design and installation firm, Lannom researched the long-term system requirements before selecting the physical products.

A channel solution from Ortronics/Berk-Tek (NetClear GT3) was chosen. The physical network components include Berk-Tek’s high-bandwidth fiber backbone terminated to Ortronics’ ORMMAC fiber-distribution cabinets. The horizontal connection includes Ortronics’ Clarity6 Category 6 patch panels and patch cords, which connect Berk-Tek’s LANmark-2000 high-speed Category 6 cable to the workstations.

Also specified was an intelligent network-monitoring solution consisting of Ortronics’ iTRACS-Ready connectivity hardware and iTRACS infrastructure-management software. The ITRACS system automatically maps all networked devices and their connectivity, for comprehensive reporting of the entire network all the time.

Connor Simonet, technician for Dell-Comm, maps, troubleshoots and tests the Protein Design Labs system.

The fiber-optic cable for the backbone between the closets and the main server room is a composite cable that includes Berk-Tek’s 12-strand single-mode and 12-strand GIGAlite10, enhanced bandwidth 50-micron, laser-optimized multimode fiber–terminated into the fiber-distribution cabinets for connectivity to the switches and horizontal cable.

“We stack our data switches for the corporate network, so that we have fiber going to each data closet in both buildings, allowing eight fiber runs to the data switch stack and two to each in-line power switch (for IP phones),” explains Carol Nelson, manager of information systems for PDL.

In the manufacturing building, there is a server room and five data closets–three on the first floor and two on the second floor. The closets are equipped with Ortronics’ Mighty Mo 6 racks, with a channel depth of 10.5 inches and designed for high-density cabling systems with a vertical management cage to protect the patch cords.

“As an industry that works in a regulated environment, we have to demonstrate that our systems are in a state of constant control and that we can document how they operate,” states Lannom. “The challenge is that we need strict control of both networks, so we decided to install a controlling configuration-management system for consistent and intelligent mapping.”

keeping track of connections
iTRACS documents the physical configuration, such as the patching and what devices are connected to it. “The ability to pinpoint a piece of equipment and the actual location of a node is invaluable to me,” states Nelson. “From an IT perspective, it allows me to keep track of what I have connected and what is not connected, which becomes an invaluable troubleshooting tool.”

This saves many hours to trace a connection to see if patching has been changed. If a connection gets unpatched, it shows up in a log, and alerts or alarms are raised via e-mail or escalated through paging or other notification.

For the control network, the system is communicating with devices and controls process functions across the network. “The concept is to protect the integrity of that control function and additionally demonstrate to regulatory authorities that we are in control of our process,” states Lannom.

With the iTRACS system, a sensor pin on the patch cord physically shows the connection between the switch and the patch panel from a sensor switch. When the software does a polling cycle, it can see what is plugged into each port and can trace it back to the panel to make sure it is properly connected to the right port. The device information is gathered through the SNMP switches.

The iTRACS system at PDL has two physical parts–an extra pin on the Clarity6 patch cords connects to the patch panel and an analyzer pin on a separate Clarity6 patch cord connects to the switches. The system tracks all devices and their connectivity. An integrated management system tracks the status of work orders and projects, and validates that changes are done correctly. The database is automatically updated for both networks when changes are completed.

For the control network, this capability becomes more crucial as it assures that the environment is kept consistent and static. The system also provides asset management by tracking switch port utilization, which reduces total cost of ownership of the entire network.

“To a certain degree, we are still exploring the system’s functionality, but in the long run, it is going to pay for itself,” notes Nelson. “As this facility expands and PDL grows, this tool and the associated installed cabling products will become invaluable. Intelligent network management will become as critical to our operations as our products are to our users.”

Carol Everett Oliver is a freelance writer and principal of Everett Communications (coliver@everettcom.com).