Firmware version includes advanced diagnostics

By Plant Engineering Staff January 2, 2007

The 9000 Series Version 3 firmware Ring Manager, which uses N-TRON’s N-Ring technology, offers expanded ring size capacity, detailed fault diagnostic and a standard heal time of 30 ms. For managing, detecting and restoring ring breaks, the device configured as a Ring Manager sends out “Self Health” and “Ring Control” periodically around the ring. If these packets are successfully routed around the ring within the allocated time window, the ring is declared to be intact. However, if the ring is broken and the Ring Manager stops receiving these health-check packets, it times out, declares a fault, sends a “Link Down” notice and converts the ring to a fiber optic backbone. This healing occurs within 30 ms.

As an additional diagnostic tool, when using all N-TRON fully managed switches in the ring, a detailed ring map and fault location chart will be shown on the Ring Manager’s web browser to identify the health status of the ring.

The N-Ring offers expanded ring size capacity for a network with up to 250 of N-TRON’s fully managed switches actively participating in a ring. Up to 50 members may be joined if using N-TRON’s unmanaged monitored switches in a ring.

N-TRON
www.n-tron.com