Belden Hirschmann Octopus PoE switches

Belden has launched four PoE switches in the Octopus series of its Hirschmann range in the EMEA region. They are available with a power supply of 24-48 V or 72-110 V.

The switches are also claimed to occupy considerably less space than those with an external power supply and are easier to install and maintain. They come in compact die-cast zinc housings measuring 184 x 189 x 70 mm. Two of the switches are unmanaged 10-port devices with industrial protection class IP54. The other two, which satisfy the requirements of industrial protection class IP67, each have nine ports and feature ‘layer 2’ basic software from Hirschmann, which incorporates a variety of management and security functions and fast redundancy methods.

The Octopus PoE switches are designed to operate at temperatures ranging from -40 to +70°C. They also fulfil the EMC and fire prevention requirements of European standards governing use in rail vehicles.

On the front of each unit are LEDs that display both device status and network status, as well as correct function of the power supply. The fast ethernet ports (10/100 Base-TX) have D-coded M12 connections. The PoE Plus power supply, which can provide 22 W per connected terminal device, uses the phantom power method, in which the terminal equipment is powered via the same wire pair that carries the data. This means that two-pair cabling systems can also be used.

The two managed designs can be configured via an ethernet interface using command line interface (CLI), DHCP relay agent option 82, HiDiscovery or RS232 interface, or via the ACA11 autoconfiguration adapter. RMON, port mirroring and LLDP (Topology Discovery 802.1ab) are available for diagnostic purposes. Alarms are signalled via an additional signal contact. More detailed information can be viewed via a standard web browser or using convenient network management software such as Hirschmann Industrial HiVision.

The managed versions also support SNMP v2c and v3. Redundancy methods such as HIPER Ring, MRP and RSTP ensure a high level of network availability. Security mechanisms include IP and MAC port security, SNMP v3, SSH, SNMP access settings (VLAN/IP) and access control via IEEE 802.1x.