Representative End User Clients
Representative Automation Clients
Representative Software Clients
Overview
Industrial Ethernet Switches (IES) are primary wireline infrastructure enablers underpinning digital transformation initiatives ranging from sustainability and electrification to regulatory compliance and cybersecurity defense. After years of sustained double-digit market size increases, however, near-term growth is slowing due to the combined impact of supply chain-driven product and component scarcities and associated price increases and customer inventory buildups.
At the same time, IES suppliers are refreshing their product portfolios in response to both increasingly software-driven functionality and escalating demands on hardware configurations. These demands range from form factor functional plateaus to ongoing demands for increased port density and the need to support emerging TSN, SPE, APL, cybersecurity, and industry-specific standards.
Escalating functional capabilities, particularly for managed switches, is coupled with the need to reduce operational and management complexity for the operations technology (OT) personnel typically tasked with deploying and managing industrial network infrastructure. This report, the first of several drawn from ARC’s recent Industrial Ethernet Switch market update, highlights new and ongoing software-driven developments in the IES landscape.
Escalating Role of Software Extends to Infrastructure Tier
Software continues to assume increasing importance in industrial automation as a primary means of adding incremental value, increasing competitive differentiation, and advancing customer stickiness. In the network infrastructure realm, current manifestations include new operating system firmware, edge compute capabilities, and new software suites for centralized management, visibility, monitoring, diagnostics, and security policy implementation across network types. Migration toward more software-centric operation must also be coupled with an emphasis on ease of use and use across all infrastructure types.
Network Operating Systems (NOS)
IES suppliers are refreshing their portfolios with new CPUs and Linux-based NOSs. Examples include Belden’s transitioning its portfolio from legacy Classic models to ones based on its new HiOS firmware, which is capable of supporting 10GB, TSN, and edge computing. Cisco is likewise migrating its portfolio to its edge-compute-capable IOS XE environment and management by its enterprise software tools, including DNA Center.
Moxa’s new EDS 4000/G4000, along with its associated MXNOS and complementary MXStudio, MXConfig, MXView, and MXSecurity software tools, are the company’s platform for the future. Numerous additional examples exist, including portfolio refresh roadmaps currently underway at Fortinet, Red Lion, and Westermo, among others.
Edge Computing
Despite the wholesale upgrade of both CPU and NOS environments, in the near term IESs will not be primary targets for edge-to-cloud integration and edge compute. Most of the new CPUs are not suitable for target edge applications in popular areas such as AI and analytics that tend to be hosted on more highly capable “thick edge” devices, such as gateways, routers, and IPCs. Applications on the “thin edge,” including most IESs, are instead focused on protocol conversion, security, data preprocessing, and rules engines, reflecting the switch’s legacy focus on connectivity rather than compute.
ARC Advisory Group clients can view the complete report at the ARC Client Portal.
Please Contact Us if you would like to speak with the author.
Obtain more ARC In-depth Research at Market Analysis