Posted to News on 29th Jul 2010, 17:12
Fast Track Switching for deterministic Industrial Ethernet
Harting's Ha-VIS FTS 3100s-A industrial Ethernet switch is the first such product from Harting to feature the company's innovative Fast Track Switching technology, which means the switch will satisfy most performance and determinism requirements in Ethernet networks for automation applications.
With Fast Track Switching technology, the switch detects real-time automation frames and uses the cut-through method to accelerate their transmission. These automation frames are always forwarded before other non-real-time frames.
The FTS 3100s-A incorporates ten Fast Ethernet ports and is an unmanaged switch that can be configured with the FTS Manager via a USB interface. It combines the simple handling of a 'plug-and-play' device with individual setting options that enable it to be tuned to the particularly automation application.
Harting says that port-related settings - such as data rate, duplex mode and port mirroring - are easy to set up, and the FTS Manager enables users to select the automation protocols that are to be detected and fast-tracked. Profinet, Ethernet/IP and Modbus TCP protocols are currently available, and can all be pre-configured and then activated with a single mouse click.
Versatile options enable other profiles to be detected and transported in FTS mode. Users may therefore benefit from FTS, even for other protocols: the switch can simply be optimised to suit almost any application, although the factory settings can handle the requirements in most cases.
An optional pluggable memory card provides users with a safe and reliable means of saving and loading the settings.
Follow the link for more information about Harting's FTS configurable Ethernet switches.
