Attend the Interop Conference for a comprehensive, integrated view of technologies that will give your business a competitive edge. Learn how the recent surge of IT innovation can help you cut costs, get closer to your customers and increase revenue.

Interop Overview

Visit our friendly representatives in booth 639, to get a preview of Transition’s extensive product portfolio or to ask specific questions regarding your network.

Throughout the conference, Transition will be presenting on information regarding the following networking topics:

• Video Security Networking and Power-over-Ethernet Products

• Service Provider Network Interface Devices and CWDM Mux/Demux

• Industrial Networking Featuring a Lifetime Warranty

• Intelligent Switching

• Remote Management and Focal Point 2.2

• Corning Media Converter Module

• What’s New From Transition?

• Connect with Transition Networks

See you in Vegas!

More Power…

The IEEE 802.3af Power-over-Ethernet standard, ratified in 2003, allows up to 15.4 watts of power to be supplied by the network itself to devices.  In the last few years manufacturers have taken advantage of the elegant efficiency and simplicity of this concept by introducing a raft of new network-powered devices such as Wireless Access Points (WAPs), Voice-over-IP Phones (VoIPs) and network-powered IP cameras (see, for example, “Network-Powering Next Generation Network Devices”, Oct 24, 2008).  Now, this standard is on the verge of a major revision.  The forthcoming 802.3at Power-over-Ethernet Plus standard is slated for ratification this September.  It promises support for devices requiring at least 24 watts, expanding network planners’ options by enabling a new generation of even more capable cameras and wireless solutions.  In the coming years, look for the emergence of “Netbooks” and thin clients, especially in enterprise and government environments requiring high security.  These new devices can now be manufactured to meet an interoperable standard.

…at Greater Speeds

Simultaneously being developed with the new higher-powered standard is 802.3av.  This standard is targeted at the service provider market, ramping up the speed of passive fiber optic transmissions in the last mile to the home or enterprise (i.e. FTTx  applications).  The jump in bandwidth this standard will deliver should enable affordable video services, such as IP Television (“IPTV”), to be delivered to consumers.  While the government has been dragging its feet since the early 1990’s promising HDTV broadcasts, technology has evolved to allow video delivery via the Internet (seen the Hulu commercials?)  Look for this standard to be eagerly capitalized upon by your local Internet Service Provider or Cable TV operator.

…Delivered More Efficiently

Finally, while politicians, educators, the media and the scientific community continue to debate the hypothesis that our industrial society may be effecting climate change—for good or for ill—we can all at least rationally agree that the use of intelligent networks which throttle back power consumption during idle periods of network use will save money.  Setting aside any highly politicized urgency in solving some real or imagined global crisis, the forthcoming 802.3az Energy-Efficient standard will provide the type of “Green” benefits all organizations are interested in: saving money

Those in industrial or hardened environments face the added challenge of creating interoperability throughout a network in less than ideal environmental conditions.  Network administrators in industrial environments are challenged to ensure network performance in harsh outdoor and factory floor locations subject to environmental factors that would render standard, office-grade equipment useless.  Hardened media converters offer a robust and economically viable solution to incorporating fiber optic cabling into a copper-based industrial networking topology.

Manage Capital Investment Costs by Evolving Your Network—through Fiber

More so in the industrial environment than in the office environment is the need to preserve heterogeneous networks, and this is where fiber and associated media converters can become cost-effective enabling technologies.

In industrial environments, there exists a wider suite of application-specific, proprietary and legacy serial protocols, tying equipment such as PLCs and process control instrumentation to man-machine interface terminals.  Much industrial equipment with these legacy interfaces simply cannot be replaced, or it is too cost prohibitive to do so.
Fiber offers multiple benefits including extending the network to the factory floor over long distance, providing signal immunity to electrical noise, future-proofing the network with extra bandwidth and decreasing bulky cable runs.  Because of the single connection utility of media converters, fiber does not have to be an expensive all-or-nothing proposition.  Simply choose the insertion points in your network where fiber is needed.  Deploying fiber through the use of media converters and/or fiber/copper switches allows you to adopt a surgical approach to evolving your network, maintaining the existing plant as much as possible.
Newer network equipment such as Voice-over-IP Phones (VoIPs), network cameras and wireless access points are often compatible with the IEEE 802.3af Power-over-Ethernet specification.  This means that the equipment receives its power via the same Ethernet cable used to transport data.
Although this approach saves cost by eliminating separate power cables to network devices, the standard is still limited to the 100 meter (328 feet) distance as standard copper Ethernet cable.  Once again, fiber and associated media converters offer economical approaches to adding this newer equipment to your legacy network.  When a network-powered device is located outdoors or a long distance away, fiber-based Power-over-Ethernet media converters can be deployed near the device, providing the data and power over copper to the device, while extending the network through their fiber ports.
Environmental Extremes Plague Industrial Applications
Industrial environments are characterized by lack of control of one or more environmental factors.
Elevated operating temperatures are characteristic in factories and process control plants; outdoors, low environmental temperatures are exacerbated by condensation in equipment cabinets.  Industrial machines generate large electrical transients and vibration.  In a manufacturing or process plant, the air may be extremely dry, humid, dusty, or filled with chemical vapors or contaminants.  Network components and cabling located outdoors must usually be moisture-proof or enclosed in NEMA-rated cabinets to protect components from the weather.
While fiber itself offers greater immunity to these factors, the external fiber jacket and the electronics within the network equipment must be designed to withstand these harsh environments.  Look for network switches and media converters with Ingress Protection (IP) ratings beyond the IP20 characteristic of office-grade equipment.  Fan-less designs reduce the incursion of dust and moisture, as well as extend the expected lifetime of equipment by eliminating moving parts.
Keep in mind that particular industrial environments are unique and may not require all equipment aspects to be hardened.  Some equipment, although not fully hardened, may still offer extended operating temperature at a lower price point.  The idea is to evolve the network as needed, being mindful of costs along the way.

Don’t overlook the physical characteristics of the fiber optic cabling deployed.  Stick with glass fiber, rather than plastic, and consider cabling with rugged jacketing that is impervious to any moisture or chemicals in the installation.

If the network is expected to be exposed to spray or wash downs, or is located outdoors, IP67-rated connectors or cable termination boxes may be required.

Fiber is Protocol Agnostic…

The industrial world is filled with proprietary, legacy and defacto networking standards.  These do not preclude the use of fiber to extend or enhance or extend the network.  Media converters operate at the physical and data-link layers, converting electrical protocols such as RS232 or multidrop RS485 to fiber.  Industrial protocols such as Modbus, which operate at the application layer, are transparently handled by media converters.

When simply converting copper-based signals to fiber-based equivalents, the data is not converted to Ethernet, so a pair of media converters is necessary.  In this case, fiber simply serves as a serial network distance extender—no protocol conversion occurs.

As Ethernet has steadily increased its presence in manufacturing and process control plants serial device servers, which network enable these legacy serial protocols, have become common.  A serial device server converts native serial protocols to Ethernet frames, which can then be handled by Ethernet equipment.

Fiber also plays an important role in these applications by extending the distance reach of the network to the far-away factory floor where the serial device servers are located, as well as providing immunity to signals passing through electrically noisy industrial environments.  Serial device servers are available with either 10/100BASE-TX copper Ethernet ports, or 100BASE-FX fiber Ethernet ports.

If using all copper-based serial device servers, a copper-to-fiber media converter can be used to convert the copper Ethernet connection to fiber, achieving the same distance and noise immunity benefits as a fiber-based serial device server.  The lesson here is that fiber is protocol agnostic, while providing the benefits of distance extension and noise immunity to your industrial network.

…but Connection Detail-Oriented

Although higher-level protocol data are passed transparently through copper-to-fiber media converters and Ethernet switches, the fiber optic connection, fiber type, wavelength and speed at each end of a fiber link must match.  Unlike the auto-negotiation characteristics of 10/100BASE-TX copper Ethernet, fiber-based links must be fixed speed, due to the light wavelength employed for the different speeds.

Fiber types, either multi-mode or single-mode, also dictate distance limitations, with multi-mode fiber capable of transmission distances up to 2 Km, and single-mode fiber capable of carrying signals error-free 80 Km or more.  When using fiber links care must be taken to ensure the connector types match those on the equipment to which the fiber is connected.  Older connector standards such as ST and SC are prevalent in industrial equipment, but–especially at gigabit speeds and beyond–Small Form Pluggable (SFP) modules are becoming more common.  Select SFP modules with the same care as the other industrial network components.

Keep in mind that SFP operating temperatures must be derated to account for the internal heat rise in the switches or media converters in which they are used.  If the internal temperature rise in an Ethernet switch is 20 degrees Celsius, for example, and your SFP is rated to 85 degrees, you must derate that SFP to at least 65 degrees.  When a network equipment manufacturer’s specification states an operating temperature range, it only applies to its equipment.

Your Industrial Application is Unique, Evolve it That Way

Hardened Industrial networking equipment on the market today is either designed for a specific customer application with little application flexibility or designed with the idea to cover as much of the market as possible with one product – a sort of one-size-fits-all.  The best approach to researching, identifying and selecting potential products is to identify the protocol, data rates and port interfaces as well as the minimum environmental factors that may affect the installation.

Fiber offers a low-cost, as-needed approach to extending and evolving an existing industrial network.   There are many options for fully hardened solutions.  When choosing to incorporate fiber, pay close attention to the warranty offered by the switch or media converter manufacturer, as this can be an indication of expected quality.  Typical warranty time frames vary from one to two years, with some manufacturers actually offering a lifetime warranty on their products.  Extended or lifetime warranties can reduce the uncertainty of capital maintenance costs, and provide a better return-on-investment.

Art Felgate is a Product Manager with Transition Networks overseeing the firm’s Industrial Ethernet offerings.

Imagine an operator offering services to a customer by simply giving them a piece of copper or fiber and saying “hook your stuff up here”. After all, that is the way that many enterprises work today, so why not extend this basic model to an operator’s service provider network?  When the traffic is flowing well, the capital expense cost to the operator is significantly reduced.

What happens when the traffic stops flowing freely? What happens when it doesn’t flow at all? Could the customer’s router be unplugged or is the cable cut? In an enterprise network, the MIS department starts looking at different equipment from the network management system (NMS) or starts checking the floor of the building and in the wiring closet looking for the problem. But what do you do when you can’t physically check a connection? What if the wiring closet is in a building you don’t have physical or network access to?  A decision must be made.  Do you simply give the customer back their monthly fees? What if the problem isn’t actually your fault?  Do you immediately offer free service without being able to actually monitor or isolate the problem?

If the service provider has no service level agreement (SLA) with the customer, which means that the customer gets what the customer gets (no guaranteed service), the demarcation still has a value.  It is still needed in isolating where a problem begins and ends in a network that may be having interface issues.  In many parts of the world, most carriers use SLA agreements as an important factor in their business model. Some service providers may have the mentality that if the customer does not like their current service level or mean-time-to-repair (MTTR), then they are free to walk.  However, this is a very unlikely scenario since most companies understand that having a tiered service agreement system allows for additional revenue potential.

The Metro Ethernet Forum, or MEF, is a worldwide consortium of operators and vendors, including Transition Networks. Transition is currently an active member working together with the MEF to define systems and services that allow the delivery of a more robust and cost-effective service deployment. The MEF has two primary efforts. The first objective is the definition of a User Network Interface (UNI), which can be found here: http://metroethernetforum.org/PPT_Documents/General%20Overview%20and%20Impact%20of%20UNI%20Type%202.ppt#461
And the second is a Network Interface Device (NID), which define the point of demarcation between and operator’s network and a subscriber/customer network.  This can be found here: 
http://metroethernetforum.org/PPT_Documents/2009_ESPE_E-NNI_UNI_NID.ppt#580,24,NID
The NIDs and UNIs have designated functions for fault detection, fault isolation with diagnostic mechanisms, and, lastly, performance management. The refinement of these functions in each of the areas is done by a number of working groups that consist of cable operators and vendors, xDSL operators and vendors, and Fiber to the Premise (FTTP) operators and vendors. These groups bring experience and guidance for current and future network deployments. xDSL has a TR-101 model, whereas cable uses the Data Over Cable System Interface Specification (DOCSIS), and  Fiber to the Premise (FTTP) is guided by the FSAN/ITU groups. 

Why would these groups get together if we could simply extend the enterprise model? In an enterprise there is one owner of the network: the enterprise. In an operator’s network there are several more constituents. The government regulatory bodies, such as the FCC, play a broad role as to how deployments need to be compliant. This compliance drives many of the technical requirements in most networks.

The value a demarcation device offers is the ability for the operator to reduce operating expenses, increase customer satisfaction, and reduce revenue loss due to outages that otherwise the operator would give away. It is simply a necessary part of the operator’s healthy business model.
 

Most of us will act like we know the meaning of a term, even if we are thinking “that isn’t what I thought it meant”, we find that often times there are different meanings or interpretations for the same networking term or acronym.

While there are many websites out there, I have listed a couple that have a good listing of networking and telecommunications terms and acronyms.

http://www22.verizon.com/wholesale/glossary/
http://www.qwest.com/wholesale/guides/glossary.html

As much as I enjoy going on-line to retrieve this information I have to admit that one of my favorite sources for networking terms and acronyms is the “Newton’s Telecom Dictionary”.

http://www.newtonstelecomdictionary.net/

In its latest revision this dictionary is over 1,000 pages and covers just about every networking related term that you can think of.   I recommend the “Newton’s Telecom Dictionary” for anyone that needs to stay abreast of the latest networking terms and acronyms.  Understanding the correct language is important whether you’re a sales personnel, engineers, technical support or product management.  Everyone in your organization can find this dictionary helpful.   I personally have one on my cube and it appears the more people in our office that know that it is there, the more I find people borrowing it.

The other unique item in this dictionary is how the authors have managed to insert humorous terms used within networking community, so the book is much more then a dictionary – it is also an enjoyable read.  This is helpful when trying to remember and learn about all of the various networking terms and acronyms.

In the following video demonstration, Art Felgate, Product Manager, discusses features offered by these hardened industrial networking devices. Switch features include a full Gig option, SFP module support and the ability to extend Power-over-Ethernet (PoE) to the network edge. Transition’s Industrial Networking Devices are “The Fittest for Any Environment.”

PRODUCT DETAILS

Some people may say that discussions focused on “going green” within data-centers, and businesses in general, are already getting out of hand.  In 2008, it seemed like everyone was talking about green products, yet everyone also seemed to have their own definition of what makes a product green.

As this debate continues, there is no doubt that energy efficiency is an issue everyone should be looking at.  We are all faced with soaring energy prices and increasing energy consumption, which is often due to increases in processing power and cooling requirements.

While it may be difficult and expensive to make a major move into “greening-up” your IT environment, there are many little things you can do to see immediate economic and environmental benefits.  Communication News magazine often has commentary on Green Technology and in the January 2009 issue, Denise DiRamio created a list of 10 Tips to Green IT.

The items on this list are not earth-shattering, but they are great tips to keep in mind as we work though the challenges we face in 2009. Her list includes:

• Replace old hardware
• Cut the clutter
• Virtualize
• Power management
• Decommission unused equipment
• Intelligent cooling
• Enable remote workers
• Use video
• Consider managed services
• Measure energy use

I encourage you to read Denise’ complete GreenTech column.  I found her tips very interesting and I think you will too.

A Transition authorized distributor since 1998, Policom Group is the Brazilian national market leader in the cabling solutions market. They work with internationally recognized vendors, and have a focus in data, voice, video, and access control solutions. Policom Group is formed by: Policom Cabos and Conectors (São Paulo-SP), Policom Telecom (Rio de Janeiro-RJ), Paris Cabos (São Paulo-SP), Policom Paraná (Curitiba-PR) and Cabosul (Porto Alegre-RS).

Founded in 1995, Policom group has a logistic structure capable of covering all of Brazil, while also offering technical and sales support to their customers. In order to stay on top of current market trends and the best connectivity solutions, Policom’s sales professionals often participate in technical trainings with product manufacturers and partners. This allows Policom to not only sell products, but to also provide unparalleled support to their customers. This high level of support has lead to many national awards for their team in regard to delivery times, sales support, and technical channel trainings. Another indicator of Policom’s commitment and success is the company’s rate of growth: 167% in 2007 and 6,127% from 2005 to 2007.

Recently Policom Group created an Industrial Networks division, developed to focus on companies within the Industrial space. Transition Networks Industrial Ethernet products, with their rugged and reliable features have proven to be a good fit for this endeavor. Much of the joint success that Transition and Policom have enjoyed over the last two years can be credited to the support received from the Local Transition Sales Manager in Brazil. With customers in all major verticals, ranging from verticals like: data centers, mining and service providers –  Transition’s wide array of media conversion and switching products will continue to help Policom Group meet their customer’s diverse product and service needs.

Transition Networks offers 24×7 technical support. We feel this is a great value to our customers. It gives them the confidence of knowing that they can get the help they need, when they need it, no matter what time of day they have scheduled their installation. But many of these installation and configuration questions never make it to the phone call, e-mail, or live web chat stage. Customers and installation technicians often tell us they were able to find the answers they need in our product installation manuals.

We put a lot of time and effort into creating the most comprehensive and complete product manuals possible. Our Senior Technical Writer, Richard B. Adams, has close 20 years experience in writing manuals, and designing, developing, and presenting technical trainings. Transition Networks puts a high level of value on offering technical documents that are complete, accurate, and helpful to our customers.

Don’t just take our word for it; there are other organizations that agree as well. One of our manuals was recently recognized by leaders in the Information Mapping industry. And Richard has won awards from STC (the Society of Technical Communication), Bitpipe.com, and APEX (Awards for Publication Excellence). His latest award was documented in a recent Case Study: Senior Tech Writer Draws Prizes and Praise for Manuals Created with Information Mapping. This award came from IMAP as an outstanding example of using Information Mapping methods in the manual for our new RS232 to Ethernet device server product. Richard says, “I get feedback all the time about my manuals, how easy they are to use, how quickly people can find information, and how good they look”.

At Transition Networks, we feel the quality of our technical documentation only adds more value to the quality of our products and the quality of your Transition Networks’ experience.

Read more about this imminent technology from the chairman of the Ethernet Alliance PoE/PoEPlus Technical Committee himself at http://www.embedded-computing.com/articles/id/?3649.

Now, my question is when will we have wireless power transfer? This is not as out of the realm of possibility as it might seem. Nikola Tesla (whose superior design for AC power distribution won out over Edison’s DC scheme) even patented this idea over 100 years ago! Researchers at MIT recently explored this phenomenon, which they termed Witricity: http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2007/06/070607171130.htm

The idea was even explored in recent popular culture, in the 2006 film, The Prestige, in which a desperate rivalry between late 19th century magicians is sustained not by magic, but by Tesla’s science.