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As well as a special durability against water, dust, thermal and mechanical stress, such systems must fulfill further important demands typical for production:

 direct current power supply,
 to be able to make service and maintenance fast, simple and by non-technical persons,
 very short response times,
 trivial configuration by non-specialists and
 very fast error recovery switching times.

Up until now the Spanning Tree Protocol has been the dominant redundancy procedure on layer 2 for Ethernet networks, but it is too slow for industrial applications. Now with the replacement of this outdated protocol by the Rapid Spanning Tree (RSTP) the question is again; how are Ethernet products and standardized protocols qualified for applications in industrial environments.

Hence, in the test lab of ComConsult Research switches from Hirschmann, the leading German manufacturer of industrial switches, were checked out and tested for their industrial use.

The following questions were put in the center of the analysis:
 How does a switching system, which was developed especially for industrial 
   environments, differ from systems used in office areas?
 Are the industrial requirements fulfilled by Hirschmann’s products?
 Is the redundancy procedure “HiPER Ring”, which is implemented in the Hirschmann 
   Switches, really better than RSTP, so that the use of a non-standard protocol is justifiable?