S6 set up on a Dante network

[vudoo]

The Networking guidelines suggests the the S6 should be on a separate network if one is using Audio ove Ethernet. My set up includes a DAD AX32 with ProMon and Focusrite's Rednet PCIe and trying to figure the best way to set up.

At the moment i have everything hook up to a managed switch (with Quality of Service), including the MacPro.

If i plug the S6 directly to the second port of my Mapro instead of the switch in order to separate the audio and S6 network as recommended, than how can i access the Promon option now that the AX32 and S6 are on two separate network ?

[creativecontrol]

Greetings,

I don't feel like it is absolutely necessary to separate S6 and Audio over IP connections. I have the exact same components in your setup and have been running them for many months with no issues.

However, you can put EUCON for S6 (WSControl) on it's own NIC and every other networked item: DAD, LAN, DVS on a different NIC. This should help with DANTE streaming.



Jeff

[vudoo]

Originally Posted by creativecontrol

Greetings,

I don't feel like it is absolutely necessary to separate S6 and Audio over IP connections. I have the exact same components in your setup and have been running them for many months with no issues.

If you want to separate the DANTE the AX32 (when DANTE option is installed) can have 2 different subnets - 1 for control (DADman, EUCON) and 1 for IP Audio. You can set this up under the Settings > Device List in DADman. Essentially you would put the control port in the same subnet on your switch with S6 and the workstations and then have the second network established as IP Audio only. Hope this helps.



Jeff

You're right, I tested the S6 plugged into second Ethernet port of my MacPro and I don't see any difference from having it on the same switch as the audio over IP equipment.

Just out of curiosity and for my own education...On my MacPro, I had the S6 on Ethernet port 2 (192.168.2.x) and the switch (with QoS) with the AX32 (10.0.1.14)and Focusrite rednet PCIe (10.0.1.46) on Ethernet port 1. With this config, the S6 is on a different network as the AX32 so why it can still communicate and function with the ProMon of the AX32 ?

[ntp-jl]

Hi vudoo

Let me chime in and try to satisfy your curiosity.

Basically the DADman software scans all network ports on your MacPro looking for DAD products so the DADman software doesn't care about which network port you use for the AX32.

For the integration with the S6, DADman "talks" to the Eucon software (WSControl). In WSControl you must specify which network port is used for Eucon. So DADman doesn't know which network port is used for Eucon, and actually it doesn't care either as it only talks to WSControl and leaves it to WSControl to communicate on the network with the S6.

In other words, DADman is roughly acting as a "bridge" between the AX32(s) on any network port and WSControl, which can also communicate on any network port.

As Jeff mentions, it shouldn't be necessary to keep Dante, Eucon and DADman control on separate networks as they can easily co-exist on the same network assuming the network is designed properly. After all, the whole concept of networks is that you can use them for any kind of traffic at the same time ;-).

[vudoo]

Thanks for the info and great product btw!

[EddieJones]

Originally Posted by ntp-jl

As Jeff mentions, it shouldn't be necessary to keep Dante, Eucon and DADman control on separate networks as they can easily co-exist on the same network assuming the network is designed properly. After all, the whole concept of networks is that you can use them for any kind of traffic at the same time ;-).

The problems occur if the Audio over IP uses most of the bandwidth leaving nothing for EUCON (which requires a minimum amount for time specific operations like meters and automation moves) Network packets can get dropped and then things start to get out of sync, which can cause a number of issues, the worst being a complete disconnect.

[EddieJones]

Originally Posted by vudoo

You're right, I tested the S6 plugged into second Ethernet port of my MacPro and I don't see any difference from having it on the same switch as the audio over IP equipment.

Just out of curiosity and for my own education...On my MacPro, I had the S6 on Ethernet port 2 (192.168.2.x) and the switch (with QoS) with the AX32 (10.0.1.14)and Focusrite rednet PCIe (10.0.1.46) on Ethernet port 1. With this config, the S6 is on a different network as the AX32 so why it can still communicate and function with the ProMon of the AX32 ?

Yes DADman will work in either of these configs with the second being the safest and most reliable. If not using the full bandwidth of Dante then on the same network can work OK, but its difficult to quantify the point where it would fail.

[creativecontrol]

Greetings,

I have just done some more testing and find it advantageous to isolate EUCON to its own NIC if possible. This serves to minimize any dropouts that may occur with DANTE streaming when copying huge files over the network, connecting and disconnecting Workstations to S6, etc.

My new tests have the S6 (EUCON, WSControl) isolated on Mac Pro NIC 2 while everything else is on NIC 1 including: DADman, Internet, Local File Sharing, DVS, Focusrite RedNet devices, etc.

Again, this can all live on a single network however I've observed increased streaming stability when isolating EUCON to its own dedicated NIC.


best,



Jeff

[vudoo]

Hi Jeff,

At the moment, i have the S6 on the same network as Dante on NIC1 and reserved the NIC2 for my VEP slave (VEP is on a second nMP 12 cores).

The VEP mac is streaming roughly 120 tracks back to PTHD12 over ethernet. Do you think it's better if i isolated the S6 by plugging it on NIC2 and put my VEP server on my Dante network ?

[creativecontrol]

Greetings,

If I were you I would probably do some testing - load balancing and see how it behaves under different configurations. You may want to try putting EUCON (WSControl) on the same NIC as VEP and leave everything else on the other. Let me know what you find.



best,




Jeff