Localised data management in the Industrial Internet of Things

Indus­tri­al Eth­er­net, the most wide­ly used com­mu­ni­ca­tion stan­dard, allows for the sim­ple con­nec­tion to con­trol lev­els while also ensur­ing good com­mu­ni­ca­tion between localised field devices and the con­trol sys­tem. With its new man­aged switch­es in the Advanced Line, Wei­d­müller is pro­vid­ing a guar­an­teed future-proof infra­struc­ture with high lev­els of avail­abil­i­ty, reli­a­bil­i­ty and trans­paren­cy. The Advanced Line man­aged switch­es can increase net­work avail­abil­i­ty by means of redun­dan­cy and con­trol mech­a­nisms, and also offer a range of diag­nos­tic options for sophis­ti­cat­ed automa­tion net­works. They sup­port com­mon pro­to­cols such as STP/RSTP or SNMP and can be intu­itive­ly con­fig­ured via a brows­er-sup­port­ed web inter­face. With mod­el vari­ants for Fast Eth­er­net, Giga­bit and PoE as well as ver­sions fit­ted with between 5 and 24 ports, the switch­es also ensure high lev­els of flex­i­bil­i­ty. The large tem­per­a­ture range means that the switch­es can be used in chal­leng­ing envi­ron­ments such as pro­duc­tion appli­ca­tions or in the field. The Advanced Line prod­uct line ranges from Full Man­aged switch­es for com­plex appli­ca­tions such as those with port mon­i­tor­ing, to Lite Man­aged switch­es for sim­ple tasks with­in a net­work rep­re­sent­ing very good val­ue for money.

High level of operational reliability thanks to quick redundancy mechanisms

Ring redun­dan­cy is used as stan­dard in today’s Indus­tri­al Eth­er­net net­works. This ring redun­dan­cy method increas­es the avail­abil­i­ty of automa­tion net­works and reduces down­times while also opti­mis­ing con­fig­ura­bil­i­ty and oper­abil­i­ty with­in the net­work. The Wei­d­müller Advanced Line switch­es sup­port the com­bi­na­tion of ring and line redun­dan­cy, involv­ing the inter­link­ing of mul­ti­ple Eth­er­net switch­es in a line net­work. The con­fig­u­ra­tion of the head switch and the tail switch at the out­er ends of the chain incor­po­rates the two ends into the net­work. Using the ring and line redun­dan­cy method allows admin­is­tra­tors to cre­ate redun­dant topolo­gies with a high lev­el of flex­i­bil­i­ty in each net­work seg­ment. When using the Wei­d­müller Advanced Line switch­es, a back-up path is cre­at­ed if one of the net­work seg­ments fails, mean­ing that the net­work is restored in just 30 ms in a set­up with up to 250 switch­es. This increas­es net­work avail­abil­i­ty while reduc­ing cost-inten­sive downtimes.

The Advanced Line switch­es sup­port com­mon pro­to­cols such as STP, RSTP or SNMP, mak­ing them par­tic­u­lar­ly easy to inte­grate into dif­fer­ent automa­tion land­scapes. The web-based con­fig­u­ra­tion of the Advanced Line switch­es is per­formed using a sim­ple and intu­itive user inter­face. As a result, users are able to ben­e­fit from direct access to all sta­tus infor­ma­tion and oper­a­tional func­tions of the switch­es with­in their famil­iar soft­ware environment.

Wei­d­müller also offers an exter­nal Back­up and Restore mod­ule for smooth oper­a­tion even in the event of errors.  This mod­ule pro­vides a back­up of the device con­fig­u­ra­tion, mak­ing sure that recon­fig­u­ra­tion can be per­formed direct­ly on the device if required. This means that the con­fig­u­ra­tion can be backed up with­out a net­work or a com­put­er. A replace­ment device can there­fore be put back into oper­a­tion direct­ly on site.

Mod­el vari­ants for Fast Eth­er­net, Giga­bit and PoE (Pow­er over Eth­er­net — for the remote sup­ply of the periph­ery) as well as the options to have between 5 and 24 ports ensure a high lev­el of flex­i­bil­i­ty, mean­ing that there is the per­fect device for every appli­ca­tion. All Eth­er­net switch­es have an indus­tri­al IP30 met­al enclo­sure with inte­grat­ed clip-in base for easy instal­la­tion on the ter­mi­nal rail (TS35). In addi­tion to its sim­ple instal­la­tion, the switch is also char­ac­terised by its large tem­per­a­ture range. The switch­es can be used in envi­ron­ments from –40 to +75 °C. This allows for oper­a­tion both with­in pro­duc­tion and in the field.

The right product for every application

Depend­ing on the par­tic­u­lar ver­sion, the switch­es are fit­ted with a num­ber of com­bin­able cop­per or fibre-optic inter­faces, mean­ing that dif­fer­ent media can be used and large dis­tances cov­ered. Whether mul­ti-mode or sin­gle-mode, 500 metre or any­where up to 20 km – the SFP slots help to guar­an­tee flex­i­ble use. With the mod­u­lar port assem­bly, the trans­ceiv­er sim­ply needs to be plugged in. It is there­fore also pos­si­ble to change the tech­nol­o­gy at a lat­er point in time.

The Advanced Line switch­es are avail­able in the “Full Man­aged” and “Lite Man­aged” ver­sions. The Full Man­aged switch­es are par­tic­u­lar­ly well-suit­ed for use in net­works with com­plex tasks and par­tic­u­lar require­ments regard­ing redun­dan­cy, secured data trans­fer or the mon­i­tor­ing of indi­vid­ual ports.  The Lite Man­aged switch­es are the eco­nom­i­cal alter­na­tive for sim­ple tasks in net­works with lit­tle demand for man­aged processes.