Communication network topology in SCADA systems - Mini Project: Build & Apply

Communication Network Topology

📖 Scenario: You are working with a SCADA system that monitors and controls industrial processes. The communication network topology defines how devices like sensors, controllers, and servers connect and communicate with each other.Understanding and representing this topology helps in managing the network efficiently and troubleshooting communication issues.

🎯 Goal: Build a simple representation of a communication network topology using a dictionary where each device is a key and its connected devices are listed as values.Then, add a configuration variable to filter devices with more than a certain number of connections.Finally, create a list of devices that meet this connection threshold and display it.

📋 What You'll Learn

Create a dictionary called network_topology with exact device connections

Add a variable called connection_threshold with the value 2

Use a list comprehension to create a list called highly_connected_devices containing devices with connections greater than connection_threshold

Print the highly_connected_devices list

💡 Why This Matters

🌍 Real World

Communication network topologies are essential in SCADA systems to understand how devices connect and communicate, which helps in monitoring and troubleshooting industrial processes.

💼 Career

Knowing how to represent and analyze network topologies is valuable for roles in industrial automation, network administration, and SCADA system maintenance.

1

Create the network topology dictionary

Create a dictionary called network_topology with these exact entries: 'Sensor1': ['Controller1'], 'Sensor2': ['Controller1'], 'Controller1': ['Sensor1', 'Sensor2', 'Server1'], 'Server1': ['Controller1']

SCADA systems

# Create the network_topology dictionary with exact device connections
# Your code here

Need a hint?

Use curly braces {} to create the dictionary and square brackets [] for the lists of connected devices.

2

Add a connection threshold variable

Add a variable called connection_threshold and set it to 2

SCADA systems

network_topology = {
    'Sensor1': ['Controller1'],
    'Sensor2': ['Controller1'],
    'Controller1': ['Sensor1', 'Sensor2', 'Server1'],
    'Server1': ['Controller1']
}
# Add the connection_threshold variable below
# Your code here

Need a hint?

Just assign the number 2 to the variable connection_threshold.

3

Create a list of highly connected devices

Use a list comprehension to create a list called highly_connected_devices that contains devices from network_topology whose number of connections is greater than connection_threshold

SCADA systems

network_topology = {
    'Sensor1': ['Controller1'],
    'Sensor2': ['Controller1'],
    'Controller1': ['Sensor1', 'Sensor2', 'Server1'],
    'Server1': ['Controller1']
}
connection_threshold = 2
# Create the highly_connected_devices list using list comprehension
# Your code here

Need a hint?

Use for device, connections in network_topology.items() and check if len(connections) > connection_threshold.

4

Print the list of highly connected devices

Write a print statement to display the highly_connected_devices list

SCADA systems

network_topology = {
    'Sensor1': ['Controller1'],
    'Sensor2': ['Controller1'],
    'Controller1': ['Sensor1', 'Sensor2', 'Server1'],
    'Server1': ['Controller1']
}
connection_threshold = 2
highly_connected_devices = [device for device, connections in network_topology.items() if len(connections) > connection_threshold]
# Print the highly_connected_devices list below
# Your code here

Need a hint?

Use print(highly_connected_devices) to show the list.