(pressebox) (Klingenberg, 04.10.2010) Lantech's smart ring industrial switches are selected for a water treatment project in central Europe. As the necessary utility for everyone, water treatment plants must be under real-time monitoring to provide 24/7 services. Using the industrial Ethernet network is one of the best solutions which is not only reliable but also convenient. Administrators can connect traditional SCADA system to Ethernet via media converter easily, without any trouble, or connect directly to newer Ethernet-supported equipments.

In the project, there are a few hundred units of Lantech IES-1204FT installed in 3 separated stations where each station use one Rockwell enterprise switches as the control center. The IES-1204FT provides flexible connections with its 4 10/100 RJ-45 ports and 2 SFP slots. The SFP slots allow a longer distance connectivity up to 120km, which is much farer than CAT-5e's 100m, and the SFP module can be changed easily. The project utilizes IES-1204FT's Pro-Ring system features: X-Ring and Dual Homing to ensure the network reliability. The Dual Homing function preserves one backup path to upper layer switch, which supports RSTP protocol. The rest of the switches are connected in several Ring topologies, providing an amazing recovery time of less than 10ms. Depends on different areas such as drainage well and leveraged wells, the switches may connect with aerator RTU, sludge removal RTU, or primary clarifier RTU, etc. Via Lantech IES-1204FT, the whole network system is able to be monitored by control room remotely.