Westermo Data Communications has introduceda family of industrial Ethernet switches that guarantee data transmission in applications with severe operating conditions and extreme environments. Suitable for safety critical applications, the super slim (50mm) Viper series of eight-port switches have rugged M12 connectors, an IP65 sealed metal case and no sensitive or fragile components. This makes them suitable for situations where mechanical stress, moisture, condensation, dirt or continuous vibrations could adversely affect the function of standard Ethernet switches.
The Viper switches have an impressive 100 year MTBF (Mean Time Between Failure) as well as meeting the EN 50155 standard for electronic equipment used in railway applications. The units also have the ability to work in temperatures between –40 to +70°C, making them ideal for installations in unconditioned cabinets. The units have an operating voltage of 19-120 VDC.
The Viper 408 managed version of the switch offers Westermo’s unique FRNT (Fast Recovery of Network Topology) redundant ring functionality, the fastest protocol on the market to reconfigure a large network in the event of any line or hardware failure. FRNT is able to reconfigure a redundant ring network within 20 ms, regardless of network load. This functionality enables the managed Viper switches to be used in safety critical applications such as railway systems, tunnels and traffic signal control.
Real-time properties are also available on the Viper 408 in order to achieve determinism for critical applications. The device supports QoS (Quality of Service) with four priority queues and strict priority scheduling as well as HoL (Head of Line Blocking Prevention). These features enable the switch to run high availability services safely. The Viper 408 also supports VLAN and IGMP snooping, which help to achieve reliable use of bandwidth and maintain the functionality of the network.
Management of the switches is done using the Windows based IP Configuration tool or via SNMP (Simple Network Management Protocol). The IP configuration tool comes free with the package and any of the Ethernet ports can be used. Thus, no serial port is required for configuring the switch.
The new range also includes an unmanaged version. The Viper 108 industrial Ethernet switch is specifically for creating multi-drop and star network topologies. All Viper products are totally compatible with Westermo’s Lynx devices, allowing networks of both switch types to be created.
Westermo will present the Viper series at Railtex 2009, March 10-12, Earls Court, Stand 639.