The new Harting Scon family of industrial Ethernet switches is claimed to be the industry's first to offer ring redundancy on the basis of unmanaged Ethernet switches connected in a ring configuration.
Ring redundancy 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 systems 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 is said to give the Scon family a distinct advantage over other unmanaged Ethernet switches, and offers an economical alternative to redundancy systems based on managed Ethernet switches.
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