The new Harting sCon family of industrial Ethernet switches is the industry's first to offer ring redundancy on the basis of unmanaged Ethernet switches connected in a ring configuration. The ring redundancy approach achieves high system availability, while simplifying the configuration and ease of operation of the network. Detailed network knowledge is not needed to configure the redundancy because it can easily be achieved via a USB port - unlike previous solutions using unmanaged switches.
In addition to its use in ring redundancy systems, the sCon can also be used for parallel redundancy. The combination of these two functions gives the sCon family a distinct advantage over other unmanaged Ethernet switches, and offers an economical alternative to redundancy systems based on managed
Ethernet switches.