Fast recovery time and resilience for complex solutions

FRNT Ring Coupling and Multilink Dual Homing

The need

Some industrial networks are so critical that they must be resilient to both media and equipment failure. If there is a failure there may be no opportunity to carry out network maintenance for some time. For this reason therefore it is desirable to have a network that can tolerate multiple failures. The traditional approach to this is to use routing protocols, however these protocols can be slow to reconfigure the network  and also the network hardware tends to have a higher cost.

Networking consideration

Protocols such as OSPF and RIP have been designed for huge wide area networks. The protocols allow network hardware to be connected with multiple backup paths that are selected if the primary paths fail. As these protocols are designed for wide area networks they often take several seconds to reroute data in the event of a topology change. These router technologies are defined as a layer 3 function. For faster network reconfiguration layer 2 switch protocols need to be used to control the network topology.

The solution

A combination of Westermo’s Multilink Dual Homing and FRNT Ring Coupling provide a rapid recovery resilient network solution. Different media can also be incorporated to make use not just of normal copper and fibre network cables, but also twisted pair connections using SHDSL technology.