S-Ring for Magnum 6K Switches
Software for Redundancy Management

Description
Magnum S-Ring (patent pending) Redundancy Manager software product, built upon networking industry standards including IEEE 802.1d Spanning Tree Protocol (STP), enables Magnum 6K Managed Switches to simplify and speed up recovery from faults in Industrial Ethernet LAN configurations that use a ring structure. With S-Ring, fault tolerant LANs finally can have both standards and speed.

The S-Ring product supports multi-vendor Ethernet switches and hubs in the rings. While fault recovery times will vary with the particular ring topology and ring member devices selected, almost any ring using standard Ethernet products will experience recovery speed improvements over STP using S-Ring. In addition, S-Ring makes Ethernet ring-topology LANs more reliable because fault recovery is less complex and much faster.

Industrial LANs often extend over great distances using fiber media, and a ring structure provides fault tolerance at low cost because it minimizes cabling expenses. The number of ring members or “drops” may be 10 or 20, even 50 or more in some cases such as in energy and transportation systems. Pipelines, railroads, windmill farms, oil and gas producing fields, waterways and canals, tunnels, highways and city traffic control systems are all good examples of redundant ring applications covering large areas and long distances. Other industrial facilities that benefit from large rings include water treatment plants, mines and quarries, forest product mills, agricultural buildings, and warehouses. With S-Ring, fault recovery speed is as fast for large rings as it is for small rings.

S-Ring software operates in a Magnum 6K Switch from specifically defined port pairs that have ring-topology Ethernet devices attached. It builds upon the foundation of STP, but offers an additional option related specifically to ring topologies. S-Ring acts to recover the ring traffic from faults at sub-second speed, over-riding the STP analysis delay but without conflicting with standard STP. The user configures and controls the S-Ring set-up as part of the 6K Switch’s managed networks software, MNS-6K. A Ring-Scan feature simplifies ring definitions and makes reliable installation easy.

Features

• Fast fault recovery in Industrial Ethernet LANs using a ring structure
• Operates with extensions to industry-standard Spanning Tree
• Multi-vendor switches and hubs supported in the rings
• Large rings (50+ members) over long distances using fiber media
• Software commands provide user set-up control
• Auto Ring-Learn Scan feature