ODVA celebrated its 30th anniversary at its 23rd Annual Meeting of Members in Clearwater, Florida, USA on March 20, 2025. Since ODVA’s founding in 1995, the core Common Industrial Protocol (CIP) technology has evolved significantly and serves as the backbone of the pioneering EtherNet/IP automation network.
The Annual Meeting was attended by over 100 industry pioneers from almost 40 companies and included keynotes from Pedro Umbelino, Principal Research Scientist, Bitsight Technologies on "Industry 4.0 Security: Protocols, Risks, Trends and Challenges" and from Craig Resnick, Vice-President, ARC Advisory Group on "Key Trends in Smart Manufacturing and Operational Resilience to Help Navigate Digital Transformation".
ODVA’s future vision
ODVA’s preceding 2025 Industry Conference covered industrial automation relevant topics
ODVA’s preceding 2025 Industry Conference covered industrial automation relevant topics, including the EU Cyber Resilience Act and CIP Security, Artificial Intelligence (AI), IPv6 and EtherNet/IP, 5G and CIP Motion, Metadata for CIP devices, Carbon Neutrality and CIP Energy, EtherNet/IP In-Cabinet, Concurrent Connections, and more.
The 23rd Annual Meeting concluded with an announcement regarding the newly elected ODVA leadership along with ODVA’s recent technical accomplishments and future vision.
Requirements of the process industries
EtherNet/IP has undergone significant transformation since the 22nd Annual Meeting by continuing to adapt to the requirements of the process industries and through adding additional security capabilities. EtherNet/IP now has expanded process device profiles that include RTD and thermocouple temperature along with level sensors, the ability to combine concurrent connections and CIP Safety, support for PA-DIM version 1.1, and a new device-based firewall and a pull model for configuration to CIP Security.
This progress ensures that EtherNet/IP will maintain its leadership position through expanding covered applications and markets, increasing vendor interchangeability, supporting data models for ease of analysis and optimisation, and continuing to bolster security to deter bad actors.
Future developments of ODVA technologies
IPv6 now makes up almost half of all Internet traffic, and the growing proliferation of IoT devices
ODVA’s 23rd Annual Meeting followed a host of technical papers showcasing the potential future developments of ODVA technologies that were presented at the 2025 Industry Conference. These papers covered technologies including IPv6, which will be included in the EtherNet/IP Specification soon after updates to the specification are finalised and published.
IPv6 now makes up almost half of all Internet traffic, and the growing proliferation of IoT devices, sensors, and interconnected machinery on the OT floor demands more address space, which IPv4 cannot provide.
In addition to IPv6, presentations also covered:
- Tools available to enable time synchronisation for 5G and how they relate to CIP Motion.
- CIP Security protections, including device identity management, secure communication protocols, and vulnerability mitigation, with a view to compliance with the EU Cybersecurity Resilience Act (CRA) and Machinery Safety Act
- An overview of the use of Artificial Intelligence (AI)/Machine Learning (ML) applications in the autonomous train market
- The potential addition of metadata to ODVA’s device description files to provide contextualised presentation of devices both off-line and on-line
- The potential for implementing Bluetooth for industrial use cases with CIP communications as the application layer interface for devices and software clients
- CIP Energy building blocks for real-time energy monitoring, dynamic demand-response capabilities, and energy optimisation algorithms that are needed to reach carbon neutrality
- ODVA defined best practices for Concurrent Connections redundancy and a brief plan for the adoption and implementation of Concurrent Connections
- The protection of EDS files that are used to describe a CIP device
- The use cases that FCG – together with ODVA, PNO and OPC Foundation – wish to address
- The expansion of the EtherNet/IP In-cabinet ecosystem
- A user’s perspective on wired EtherNet/IP network architectures
