What is an industrial Ethernet switch?

Industrial switch Ethernet is a type of network switch designed for use in harsh industrial environments. Oil rigs, railroads, manufacturing plants and similar applications require industrial-grade network equipment that can tolerate an extended range of temperature, humidity, vibration, electrical interference and physical contamination (oil, water splashes).

Automation engineers have developed industrial Ethernet switches, tailoring them to the rigorous, deterministic networking requirements of manufacturing automation environments and industrial networking solutions. Railroad Ethernet switches are a type of industrial network switches designed to meet the EN 50155 railroad standard.

Types of industrial Ethernet switches include:

Industrial Ethernet switches are sometimes designed to be mounted on a DIN rail - a widely used standard metal rail used for mounting control devices in industrial networking solutions. So you may also encounter the term DIN-rail Ethernet switch or simply DIN-rail switch. DIN refers to the German standards body, Deutsches Institut für Normung (DIN). It published the original specifications, which have been adopted as European (EN) and international (IEC) standards.

Industrial Internet of Things (IIoT)

When an industrial Ethernet switch connects devices that are also connected to the Internet, the technology is known as the Internet of Things (IoT). IoT can involve connecting highly distributed physical objects to the Internet to collect and exchange data for monitoring and control. When an industrial network solution environment involves extreme temperatures or other harsh operating conditions (such as oil or sprayed water), the term is expanded as Industrial Internet of Things (IIot) or sometimes industrial IoT solutions.

You can view sample IoT application scenarios HERE and see exactly what devices are dedicated to sample solutions.

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