industrial//industrial communication//industrial Ethernet//EtherNet/IP

EtherNet/IP is the industrial Ethernet of the Rockwell Automation ecosystem. The name stands for EtherNet Industrial Protocol (it has nothing to do with Ethernet over IP), and the protocol carried is **CIP**, the Common Industrial Protocol.

EtherNet/IP is the industrial Ethernet of the Rockwell Automation ecosystem. The name stands for EtherNet Industrial Protocol (it has nothing to do with Ethernet over IP), and the protocol carried is CIP, the Common Industrial Protocol.

CIP gives it an object model far richer than a Modbus register map: devices expose typed objects, attributes and services, so a drive or an I/O module is described, not just addressed (register map).

It runs on standard TCP/IP and UDP over ordinary Ethernet, with implicit cyclic I/O messaging for control and explicit messaging for configuration; time-critical variants add synchronization for motion. PROFINET, the other large vendor's answer to the same problem, reshapes the Ethernet layer itself to win determinism; EtherNet/IP keeps standard TCP/IP and puts its richness in CIP. A plant rarely runs both on the same machine, and a gateway is how they meet.

Choosing it is usually choosing the ecosystem: Allen-Bradley PLCs, PowerFlex drives, and the integrators who know them (automation vendor).