Advanced Managed Network Requirements

Advanced managed networks are required for systems utilizing:

Advanced managed networks are larger or more complex networks using managed switches, specifically utilizing any of the following:

• Greater than 25 Eos Family devices in any Multi-Console Sessions.
• Greater than 75k outputs (150 universes) of sACN and Art-Net cumulatively.
• Greater than 100 network endpoint devices (gateways, dimmer racks, fixtures, etc.)
• Eos Expansion Processing.
• VLANs.
• Advanced show control, with input via gateways into the entertainment control LAN, via dedicated NIC input on console devices, or routed into the entertainment control LAN from an external network.

Networked Eos systems have specific hardware and software requirements which are detailed in this section. See the Guide to ETC Network Requirements for general requirements for ETC network systems.

Physical Infrastructure

Cabling and Communication

Hardwired infrastructure is required for all ETC hardware, which primarily utilizes RJ-45 connectors.

All cables must be marked on the cable jacket as meeting or exceeding the listed standards.

• All cabling used for 1 Gbps connections must meet or exceed:
  • 1000-Base-T communication standards (IEEE-802.3ab)
  • Category 5e cable standards (ANSI/TIA 568.2-D)
• All cabling used for 10 Gbps connections must meet or exceed:
  • 10G-Base-T communication standards (IEEE-802.3an)
  • Category 6a cable standards (ANSI/TIA 568-C.2)

SFP-connected cable and fiber requirements are determined by the installed transceiver. The following supported transceivers can be installed in Eos Family hardware.

The following connections (including installed, portable, and patch cables) must meet or exceed the listed communication standards.

• All switch ports connecting to Eos Family and ETCnomad devices must communicate with 1000-Base-T or higher standards. 10G-Base-T is preferred.
• All switch ports connecting to other switches must communicate with 1000-Base-T or higher standards.
• Switch ports connected to the Primary and Backup in systems utilizing Eos Expansion Processing for outputs above 75k must communicate with 10G-Base-T or higher standards.
• All switch ports connecting to network endpoint devices (gateways, dimmer racks, fixtures, etc.) must communicate with 100-Base-T or higher standards.

Many endpoint devices are not gigabit capable. Your cable and switch should be capable of carrying appropriate data speeds, generally 100-Base-T or 1000-Base-T. Consult the documentation for any network devices to determine the necessary speeds.

For the purposes of entertainment networking, a delay of 500 ns (0.5 μs) per 100 m (328 ft) segment is sufficient to include when calculating latency for all cable types. For more information, see Eos Network Overview > Network Wiring > Cable Latency.

It is recommended that all network ports be capable of providing Power Over Ethernet (PoE) with the ability to enable and disable on a port-by-port basis. ETC hardware implements 802.3af/at unless otherwise specified.

Topologies

See Eos Network Overview > Network Topology for general information about network topologies.

Single-switch networks must meet the following requirements.

• The network switch must comply with all other network requirements.

Multi-switch networks must meet the following requirements.

• Star-topologies only, with no loops, and minimized branches.
• A network supporting Eos Family sessions shall not exceed 6 hops along the furthest path in the network.

Advanced managed networks must meet the following requirements.

• Ring networks require exceedingly specific configurations to prevent collisions and duplicated data, and minimize latency. Severe disruptions can be caused if a ring network is misconfigured - either during normal operation or during a failure. As such, ETC recommends hub-and-spoke topologies unless specific network requirements push the design to a ring topology.

Switches

Port Bandwidth

• All switch ports connecting to Eos Family and ETCnomad devices must support connections of at least 1 Gbps.
• All switch ports connecting to other switches must support connections of at least 10 Gbps.
• All switch ports connecting to network endpoint devices (gateways, dimmer racks, fixtures, etc.) must support both gigabit and megabit connections, as many endpoint devices are not gigabit capable.
• All network ports must auto-negotiate 10/100/1000 Mbps speeds. The ability to set static speed on a port-by-port basis is preferred. Select hardware provided by ETC operates at lower speeds of 10/100.
• Throttling (static or dynamic) of network bandwidth is not permitted.
• Switch ports connected to the primary and backup in systems utilizing Eos Expansion Processing for outputs above 75k must communicate with 10G-Base-T or higher standards.

Switch Bandwidth

Full-bandwidth switches are recommended for all systems, particularly larger systems that are approaching the limits of a basic managed Eos network.

• Switch bandwidth must be no less than 60% of the capacity of the total possible bandwidth of all ports.

To calculate switch bandwidth, see Eos Network Overview > Network Switches > Switch Bandwidth.

Switch Latency

• Switch latency shall not exceed 15 microseconds (μs).
• Full network latency, which includes all downstream switches, shall not exceed 2 milliseconds (ms).

Switch Configuration

Switch configuration issues can be as detrimental to a network as poor cabling, too much traffic, and so on. Smaller systems may be able to minimize these problems with an unmanaged network; see Unmanaged Network Requirements.

Follow these requirements when configuring network switch ports:

• Hardwired lighting ports shall be statically assigned to output untagged data from the relevant VLAN (Virtual Local Area Network).
• If Network Access Control (NAC) is required, ETC equipment is compatible with MAC Authentication Bypass.
• Usage of MAC Authentication Bypass or any limitations on the quantity of active MAC addresses for any port should be coordinated prior to installation.
• No login mechanism (e.g. 802.1x) should be required for a connected device to gain access upon connection.
• To facilitate quick troubleshooting, including swapping of ETC hardware without IT intervention, enforcing security by limiting physical access to the assigned lighting network ports is preferred.

Internet Group Management Protocol (IGMP)

Internet Group Management Protocol (IGMP) must be supported and enabled on all switches in the system.

• All switches and connected devices in a system must use the same IGMP version.
  • Mixing versions is not supported. While IGMP v3 is backwards-compatible, v2 is not compatible with v3. Eos uses IGMP v2.
• IGMP snooping must be enabled on all switches.
• IGMP querier must be enabled on all switches, and all settings must match.
  • Querier must support devices utilizing IGMP v1, v2, and v3.
  • Robustness must be set to 2.
  • Interval must be set to 30.
• All switches must offer a minimum of 500 IGMP groups.
• IGMP packet forwarding must be enabled on all switches.
• The network shall support simultaneous IGMP join requests per device.

Rapid Spanning Tree Protocol (RSTP)

• Rapid Spanning Tree Protocol (RSTP) settings must be enabled on all switches.

Other Switch Features

The following features and their settings are exceedingly specific to individual network configurations and can cause severe disruptions in entertainment control networks if misconfigured. As such, ETC does not have any recommended settings for these features and does not offer support for systems where they are utilized.

• All routing settings must be disabled.
• All Quality of Service (QoS) settings must be disabled.
• All Flow Control settings must be disabled.
• All Broadcast Storm Protection settings must be disabled.
• All Energy Efficient Ethernet settings must be disabled.

External and Wireless Connections

Other Devices and the Internet

ETC lighting systems have traditionally used isolated networks with dedicated network hardware and cabling that are physically separate from corporate intranets and the outside world. This is the required network arrangement for advanced and basic managed networks and remains the best practice for all networks regardless of size and complexity.

• Facility intranet(s) and the ETC entertainment control network shall be separated physically (preferred) or logically (VLAN).
• The greater internet shall not be routed to or from the ETC entertainment control network.

VLANs

When physical isolation of the entertainment control network is not practical, isolated Virtual Local Area Networks (VLANs) may be used for lighting traffic. VLANs provide network security by creating logically separate Layer 2 networks defined on shared network equipment. ETC does not support Layer 3 VLANs. VLANs are intended for privacy and security, and do not increase network bandwidth.

• Devices on the lighting VLAN should only be reachable by other devices on this network. Network traffic will not be routable to the organization’s network or beyond.
• The lighting VLAN must be kept isolated from all other VLANs in the same physical network.
• VLAN bandwidth for multi-console sessions must be at least 100 Mbps.
  • Bandwidth required for sACN and Art-Net4 depends on multiple system factors and is highly variable. As a general rule, ETC recommends 1 Mbps of bandwidth for every 10 universes of lighting traffic.
• All Traffic Shaping settings must be disabled.

Consider the following best practices when using a shared network.

• If the site requires UDP string integration (third-party control integration), targeted permissions may be required allowing routed ICMP and UDP sent to/from one or more specific lighting controllers.

  CAUTION: Provide a static bandwidth allocation to the lighting network. Do not apply traffic shaping to the lighting VLAN. Dynamic bandwidth allocation can result in lighting communication sequencing or timing failures.

• Jumbo frames shall be permitted.
• Apply Rapid Spanning Tree Protocol (RSTP) to help avoid incidental loops that can cause loss of communication and control.
• Unless otherwise stipulated, all lighting device and programming ports should be configured with RSTP Edge Port Enabled to allow data forwarding as rapidly as possible upon port connection.

Show Control

Network-based show control must meet the following requirements:

• ETC Show Control Gateways may be connected directly to the entertainment control network.
• Other show control sources must be connected to Eos Host devices directly via secondary network ports (NICs).
  • IP Addresses for the secondary ports must be in a separate subnet from the entertainment control network, and may be assigned statically or using DHCP.
  • Show control sent to a specific IP address should target the addresses of the secondary ports of both Host devices.
• Control Protocols show control must be connected individually to each Eos device that requires it.
• A separate show control network may be used via a routed connection to the entertainment control network.
  • Routed connections to other show control systems should be filtered to only allow relevant traffic into the entertainment control network.
• Show-critical communication between third-party systems and Eos Family devices must use a Transmission Control Protocol (TCP) connection.

Wireless

• Wireless networking is only permitted for use with approved and supported ETC software applications.

Wireless networking is only permitted for use with approved and supported ETC software applications.

Use of Wireless Networking hardware is subject to the following requirements:

• Wireless connections to the entertainment control network are only to be used for Wi-Fi remotes.
• Wireless connections between Eos devices are not supported.

Wireless Access Points are preferred in entertainment control networks. Routers are not recommended due to their relative complexity to configure and higher potential of delaying or blocking real-time lighting data.

Protocols and Services

The following protocols and services must be supported.

Internet Protocol

Use of Internet Protocol (IP) is subject to the following requirements:

• ETC prefers that all ETC devices use static IP addresses in a single IPv4 subnet (/16 preferred).
  • ETC default IPv4 scheme is 10.101.0.0/16.
• Limitations on the quantity of active MAC addresses per network port is to be coordinated prior to an ETC technician’s arrival.
• All IP addresses shall be private. No public IP address is required as the ETC lighting network shall not be on the internet. For more information about private IP ranges, see Address Ranges.

IPv6 addressing is not currently implemented in ETC hardware.

sACN and Art-Net

Use of Streaming ACN (sACN) and Art-Net is subject to the following requirements:

• Multicast shall not be restricted, filtered, or blocked.
• Multicast address ranges used by ETC are part of industry accepted standards and protocols and are non-negotiable. They cannot be modified.
  • A list of multicast address ranges used by ETC is available upon request.
• Anycast communication is not supported by ETC product.
• Jumbo frames shall be allowed/permitted.

Network Time Protocols

Use of Network Time Protocol (NTP) and Simple Network Time Protocol (SNTP) is subject to general networking requirements.