Allen-Bradley POINT I/O - What the Adapter Does; Use of the Common Industrial Protocol (CIP)

Publication 1734-UM014A-EN-P - November 2010
About the Adapters 5
Contact Rockwell Automation if you need software or firmware upgrades to
use this equipment
What the Adapter Does
The I/O adapters perform the following primary tasks:
• Control of real-time I/O data (also known as implicit messaging) - the
adapter serves as a bridge between I/O modules and the network
• Support of messaging data for configuration and programming
information (also known as explicit messaging)
Use of the Common
Industrial Protocol (CIP)
The adapter uses the Common Industrial Protocol (CIP). CIP is the
application layer protocol specified for EtherNet/IP, the Ethernet Industrial
Protocol, as well as for ControlNet and DeviceNet networks. It is a
message-based protocol that implements a relative path to send a message
from the producing device in a system to the consuming devices.
The producing device contains the path information that steers the message
along the proper route to reach its consumers. Since the producing device
holds this information, other devices along the path simply pass this
information; they do not store it.
This has the following significant benefits:
• You do not need to configure routing tables in the bridging modules,
which greatly simplifies maintenance and module replacement.
Product Firmware Revision/ Software Release
1734-AENTR; 1738-AENTR adapters 3.xx or later
1756-ENBT 2.3 or later
Logix controller 11 or later
RSLogix 5000 software 11 or later
RSLinx software 2.3.1 or later
L
5
5
5
5
EtherNet/IP Network
E
N
B
T
Other
Network
Devices
A
E
N
T
POINT
I/O
E
N
B
T
ControlLogix
I/O