Specifications
Introduction
RS2-4R
Release
1.0
03/04
1.2
The Industrial ETHERNET Rail Switches
23
1.2 The Industrial ETHERNET
Rail Switches
Created from the start as mission-critical switches, Hirschmann's Industrial
ETHERNET switches are distinguished by their high network reliability. The
Hirschmann ring structure ensures that a single physical or logical error can
not lead to system failure. The redundancy concepts incorporated into the
switch enable the creation of a reliable, error-resistant communication net
-
work based on Ethernet.
Depending on how important the process application is, the level of resilience
in the overall network can be scaled so as to meet future requirements as
well. For example, where a controller has dual redundant network interface
cards, each card could connect to separate switches on the same resilient
fiber-optic ring. A second ring may also be integrated if double redundancy is
required.
The Fast ETHERNET Rail Switch family RS2-4R allows you to configure me-
dium to large sized deterministic ETHERNET / Fast ETHERNET networks
easily and cost-effectively.
The small number of ports of this Rail Switch family allows you to economical-
ly install Industrial ETHERNET products in systems in which a low number of
ports is required due to an efficient installation of redundant ring structures.
For example, the compact Rail Switch RS2-4R for industrial use offers
4
ports:
D 2 twisted-pair ports (10/100 Mbit/s autonegotiation) and
D 2 uplink or HIPER Ring ports. Depending on the device model, both ports
are available as a twisted-pair, multimode, singlemode or Longhaul inter
-
face.
An further important feature of the Rail Switches RS2-4R is the fast media
redundancy. The failure of a transmission path will be recognized in less than
500 ms and the Rail Switch will divert data to a redundant path. You can ac
-
tivate this function via dip switches on any Rail Switch. This process devel-
oped by Hirschmann ensures ultimate network and system reliability. This
function can also be used, for example, to expand existing networks while
they are still in operation.