This International Standard is applicable to high-availability automation networks based on
the ISO/IEC 8802-3 (Ethernet) technology.
This International Standard specifies
~ a classification scheme for network characteristics (see Annex A);
~ a methodology for estimating network availability (see Annex B);
~ a set of communication protocols that realize high availability automation networks via the
use of redundancy and that can be used in a variety of applications (see Clauses 5, 6, 7,
8).