iec 62439–3

IEC 62439–3
IEC 62439–3:2016 defines the PRP and HSR standards, which provide seamless failover against failure of any single component in Ethernet networks.
PRP and HSR are application protocol independent, can be used by most Industrial Ethernet protocols in the IEC 61784 suite and have been integrated in the framework of IEC 61850 for substation automation.
- HSR and PRP are network redundancy protocol technologies used in critical communication networks that request high availability and short switchover times.
- They are particularly fast, making them suitable for applications where the recovery time of commonly used protocols such as the Rapid Spanning Tree Protocol (RSTP) is too long.
- Since HSR and PRP use the same duplicate identification mechanism, PRP and HSR networks can be connected without single point of failure and the same nodes can be built to be used in both PRP and HSR networks.
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HSR — High-availability Seamless Redundancy
HSR (High-availability Seamless Redundancy) is a redundancy protocol for Ethernet networks requiring short reaction times and high availability, as for example protection systems at electrical substations.
Unlike common redundancy protocols like RSTP, HSR reacts to any network component failures seamlessly (without recovery time) and is invisible to the application.
PRP — Parallel Redundancy Protocol
PRP (Parallel Redundancy Protocol) is a redundancy protocol for Ethernet based networks requiring high availability and a short switchover time, as for example protection systems at electrical substations.
Unlike common redundancy protocols like RSTP, PRP reacts to any network component failures seamlessly (without recovery time) and is invisible to the application.
PRP vs HSR — Which one is better?
All in all, the choice between HSR and PRP should depend on the specific project, as the project will determine which drawbacks and advantages weigh more or less. As a rule, PRP network redundancy is more expensive, but also more flexible than HSR.
PRP redundancy usually doubles the cost of a single non-redundant network, which makes the implementation more expensive than many other redundancy protocols. A High-availability Seamless Redundancy (HSR) network can also provide the same level of redundancy and will cost less unless you’re planning on keeping replacement infrastructure anyways.
However, PRP networks provide greater flexibility in terms of network topology and allow to connect (PRP-) “unaware” nodes without a RedBox (Redundancy Box), which would be required by HSR. Yet, these singly attached nodes can only communicate with devices of the same LAN, not taking full advantage from the redundancy.
Other minor disadvantages of HSR are potential technical limitations in relation to traffic, latency and bandwidth. Still, these problems are not very frequent and can be counteracted with different methods.

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Network Redundancy
- HSR — High-availability Seamless Redundancy
- PRP — Parallel Redundancy Protocol
- Ethernet
- MAC — Medium Access Control
- VLAN — Virtual Local Area Network
- IEC 62439–3
- Network Redundancy
HSR (High-availability Seamless Redundancy) is a redundancy protocol for Ethernet networks requiring short reaction times and high availability, as for example protection systems at electrical substations.
Unlike common redundancy protocols like RSTP, HSR reacts to any network component failures seamlessly (without recovery time) and is invisible to the application.
PRP (Parallel Redundancy Protocol) is a redundancy protocol for Ethernet based networks requiring high availability and a short switchover time, as for example protection systems at electrical substations.
Unlike common redundancy protocols like RSTP, PRP reacts to any network component failures seamlessly (without recovery time) and is invisible to the application.
Ethernet is a family of wired computer networking technologies commonly used in local area networks (LAN) and also wide area networks (WAN).
Over time, Ethernet has largely replaced competing wired LAN technologies by providing higher bit rates, a greater number of nodes, and longer link distances and decent backward compatibility.
The Medium Access Control (MAC) sublayer provides flow control and multiplexing for the transmission medium to control the hardware that interacts with the wired, optic and also wireless transmission media in the IEEE 802 LAN/MAN data link layer.
The MAC is accompanied by the LLC sublayer, which provides flow control and multiplexing for the logical link (i.e. EtherType, 802.1Q VLAN tag etc.)
A Virtual Local Area Network (VLAN) is a is a subnetwork which can group together collections of devices that are connected to separate physical LANs.
VLANs allow network administrators to partition a single switched network in order to keep network applications separate despite being connected to the same physical network, without requiring new cabling or major changes in the current network infrastructure.
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Network redundancy is a method to ensure network availability, providing failover when a device or network path fails or becomes unavailable.
Redundancy is usually achieved by installing additional or alternative network devices, communication media or equipment within the network infrastructure
IEC 62439–3 & iGrid
Redundancy has been a key element in many iGrid projects, which is why all of our devices support various redundant schemes and networks, including PRP, HSR and RSTP.
iRTU/iGW‑S#01 devices can acts as HSR DANH, PRP DNP, and RedBox (Redundancy Box).

iGW‑S Substation Gateway

iRTU – With I/Os for Direct Data Acquisition
Compact and scalable bay controller which can act as IEC 61850 client or server, featuring configurable I/O boards for direct data acquisition, high-precision timestamping and an optional Ethernet switch for additional Ethernet ports.

iControl SCADA
High-performance SCADA for the visualization and control of substation data. It is able to run either in client/server or standalone modes, providing advanced functionalities such as hot-standby redundancy, automatic line coloring, events notification (via e‑mail and sms), SQL logging, and reports generation.
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