In today’s highly automated, 24/7/365 manufacturing facilities, where downtime is extremely costly making network redundancy and maximization of uptime absolutely critical to success of the enterprise, managed Ethernet switches reign supreme. These switches incorporate secondary processors that allow the engineer to manage a myriad of settings and advanced services to optimize detection of redundant paths and redirection of data to prevent data loops and resulting congestion.
But network redundancy is only half of the story. Network topology completes the picture, and engineers have devised a variety of configurations in their attempts to maximize uptime, including Trunking, Spanning Tree (STP), Rapid Spanning Tree (RSTP), and, given the limitations inherent to these protocols, more recently, proprietary rings. Advantech’s X-Ring technology is unique among these proprietary-ring protocols as being specifically designed to meet the extreme challenges of the manufacturing arena.
X-Ring, however, is perhaps better described as combining topology and protocol. It incorporates a master switch that monitors and controls packet traffic, maximizing recovery time and redundancy as well. X-Ring offers the added advantage of being easy to understand and simple to deploy. X-Ring’s basic topology is a simple ring that connects all switches in the network via CAT5 or optical fiber, the later offering the decided advantage of total isolation. The ring topology facilitates routing active and backup links separately, thus lessening the likelihood that any single physical accident might damage or destroy both links. In addition, X-Rings can be overlapped with one or more switches connecting two X-Rings.
Among the most significant advantages of Advantech’s X-Ring technology is that it can recover from the disconnection of a cable or other change in network topology in less than 10 milliseconds with a network as large as 30 switches. Yes, that’s fast!
Of course, X-Ring can be configured via a web browser, Windows utility or PC/laptop through its RS232 port. Better yet, any switch in the network can be set as the master. If all switches are set in master mode, the system simply defaults the master function to the switch with the lowest MAC address. Plus, X-Ring switches are SNMP capable, making monitoring network status a snap.
Simply put, X-Ring is a highly sophisticated solution to high-speed, high-availability network challenges, but is nevertheless intuitive to design and simple to install.