Introduction

Convergence to Ethernet networks is becoming a reality at all levels and across all markets.

In critical applications for sectors like automotive, aerospace, railway, industrial automation, defence, this Ethernet convergence must go hand-in-hand with determinism; for avoiding critical traffic to be affected by non-critical traffic.  Time-Sensitive Networking (TSN) offers a comprehensive solution for covering these demands.

However, due to the complexity of TSN networks, it is essential to be able to analyse the network communications at frame level for protocol validation, performance analysis, conformance testing and forensic purposes.  Furthermore, the validity of this analysis will be constrained by the capability of the infrastructure to correlate the frames with a common time reference.

For that purpose, Relyum by SoC-e have developed RELY-TSN-REC, a device that is able to inspect, timestamp and record regular Ethernet and Time-Sensitive Networking traffic, using the same IEEE 802.1AS timing reference as the other equipment in the network under analysis.

RELY-TSN-REC is a powerful network traffic recorder based on SoC-e RELYUM's flexible and open platform. This device can be synchronized using IEEE 802.1AS, through an external Master Clock connected to a dedicated port, and provides precise timestamps to captured traffic.

The device can be installed in Time-Sensitive Networking (TSN) Ethernet networks and can be connected both in TAP mode or Port Mirroring mode. In both cases, it acts as a transparent device and doesn't affect the deterministic behaviour of the network.

Captured traffic is recorded into an internal industrial grade SSD disk. It can be accessed by, or downloaded on to, a remote computer, using the Web Manager tool included, without impacting the recording process.

To simplify the subsequent analysis of these data, RELY-TSN-REC can be configured with filtering policies that limit the traffic recorded, based on different parameters (IP address, Ethertype, content, etc.).