Industrial networks are growing more and more complex. Powerful industrial networks are no longer defined by hardware alone – the right network management is essential. The Sinec software family offers users scalable software solutions to meet their needs in networks of various sizes in the area of operational technology (OT), from initial commissioning of network components, monitoring, and management to using network services for the necessary infrastructure at a central level.
With the new Sinec software family, Siemens offers a range of functions in the field of network management. The Sinec software family meets the diverse requirements of a modern industrial network and helps users to overcome the challenges of digitalisation, such as the ever-growing number of network devices as well as the security and clarity of increasingly complex networks. Alongside the Sinec NMS (network management system), two additional Sinec tools – Sinec INS and Sinec PNI – offer even more options for comprehensive network management.
The new Sinec INS (infrastructure network services) is a software tool for central network services. It provides customers with a quick and easy overview of all network services via a unified user interface. The tool offers general network services, which specifically benefit OT. Using Sinec INS, the OT can create an autonomous network – independent of IT services – and the network can for example be hosted in an OT data centre. This includes various servers such as DHCP (IP address management), Syslog (collection of events in the network), NTP (time management), Radius (authentication in the network) and TFTP (for firmware updates on network components).
The new Sinec PNI (primary network initialisation) commissioning tool enables the quick and easy initialisation of Scalance and Ruggedcom network components. Controllers can also be initialised. This expansion of the Sinec family portfolio to include the Sinec PNI tool offers convenient basic initialisation and ensures the availability of network components.
Both new tools are ideal additions to the efficient Sinec NMS. The new version V1.0 SP1 of Sinec NMS can also be used to manage security-related aspects in the network. This includes, for example, firewall and NAT (network address translation) management with device-specific rules as well as the policy-based configuration of the network infrastructure and Syslog client. Firewall components can be configured conveniently and efficiently from a central point. Sinec NMS offers a local documentation function via audit trails, which document user activities automatically with a time stamp. This means that audit log entries can be traced without problems. This saves time and effort during investigations and can be used to prove the revision security of data. For further analysis, this audit log information can be forwarded to a central location via the Syslog interface in Sinec NMS (as a Syslog client). In addition, Sinec NMS V1.0 SP1 can be used to centrally monitor, manage and configure tens of thousands of devices in networks of different sizes and with varying segmentation.
Sinec software solutions take industrial networks forward. Users benefit from greater security and convenience in their network management throughout the entire lifecycle and in every industry. As a result, more network components can be managed in less time, which saves both effort and money.
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