Extreme Networks is rolling out a line of rugged network switches designed to provide continuous operation and high performance in harsh environments.
The company this week unveiled the Industrial Services Switches, which officials said will sit in the vendor’s ExtremeSwitching family of products and round out Extreme’s portfolio of software-driven wired and wireless systems for enterprise campus operations.
The switches are optimized to run in such difficult operating environments as manufacturing, utilities, surveillance, smart transportation systems and smart cities, officials said. The goal was to provide hardware that can address workloads and tasks in sites outside the confines of the data center, according to Eric Broockman, CTO and executive vice president of engineering for Extreme.
“In today’s diverse industrial landscape, Extreme recognized the need for a solution that meets unique product requirements and certifications beyond operating temperature,” Broockman said in a statement. “With the growth of smart city technology, advanced surveillance and intelligent transportation systems, our family of switches provides a resilient and powerful solution that is optimized for industrial environments.”
The switches are fully managed and include such features as support for IEEE 802.3af and 802.at power-over-Ethernet (PoE) for IP cameras, wireless LAN access points and sensors. For greater resiliency, the systems include fast failover rings, while IP multicast support is aimed at video uses.
The rugged design features include the ability to operate a broad range of temperatures, from minus-40 degrees Celsius to 75 degrees Celsius, all while being housed in a fanless IP30 metal enclosure. The new switches can be used in DIN rail or wall-mounted models with eight to 12 ports for 10/100 and 10/100/1000 applications. All the systems support 1G-bps uplinks for high-bandwidth environments, officials said.
The switches include mesh topologies that integrate with other Extreme switch products that run Extreme’s EXOS network operating system, and offer granular device and user authentication features.