Over the years, we have identified some frequently asked questions from our customers. If you have a question about our products, there is a good chance that the answer to your question is here in our FAQ section.
Click on the bar below to choose between questions regarding our industrial Ethernet products or questions regarding our general products.
Q.1 What is Industrial Ethernet? How it is different from Ethernet?
Ans:
Industrial Ethernet is about bringing Ethernet Technology to the Industrial Sector. Industrial Ethernet devices need to be more redundant than those in normal Ethernet and must be able to communicate with serial devices and proprietary protocols like Modbus, Fieldbus and Canbus. Industrial Ethernet products should also be able to bear the harsh and hazardous conditions of Industrial environments.
Q.2 I have hundreds of VLANs to setup on INS-808. May I have an easier way for configuring them?
Ans:
Yes, you can prepare a plain text file containing plenty of commands for configuring the Switch. Have those commands typed in file one each line as entered on Command Line Interface. And then store the command file in the work directory of a TFTP server; use this command to submit the batch of commands to configure the Switch:
upgrade cfgtext [IP of TFTP server] [command filename]
Q.3 May I have my media converters with commercial type enclosure installed on DIN Rail?
Ans:
Yes, DR-036 Wall-mounting/DIN-Rail-Mounting Kit enable media converters with commercial type enclosure to mount on DIN Rail or walls.
Attach DR-036 to the Media Converter using the screw-holes located on the four corners. The DIN-Rail mounting accessory is on the rear side, and the wall mounting screw-holes are on the two sides.
Q.4 What is the difference between a Managed Solution and an Unmanaged Solution?
Ans:
Managed Solutions offer maximum reliability and the ability to check the status of every network component. It also minimizes the time spent identifying problems and troubleshooting. Managed Solutions usually require staff with more technical skills. Unmanaged solutions are used in cases where there is no need to monitor and manage networking components / traffic. The “unmanaged” products are mostly plug-n-play and easy to use and do not require specialized technical staff. However, on such networks it takes a long time to identify any problems and the devices can’t offer any network statistics.
Q.5 What is JET Ring and how does it work?
Ans:
JET Ring is a VOLKTEK proprietary platform that offers communication redundancy by switching data transmission to a redundant path if the primary path fails. It takes less than 300ms to activate the back-up path once this JET Ring function kicks in. Please follow the steps below to perform the JET Ring configuration. STEP 1: On all switches that will be used in the Ring Topology, select “JET Ring” option from the “Bridge Config” menu of the switch. STEP 2: Simply connect the INS-803 switches to one aother with any combination of fiber or copper ports. You can use any two ports to connect the switches with each other. Once the power is on and the link established, all the interconnected switches will learn MAC addresses and the switch with the shortest MAC address will be selected as Ring Master. To stop two-way communication in the ring and determine the primary and redundant path, an Arbiter will be selected. To select the Arbiter, the following formula will be used in combination with port priority. i) In case an even number of switches are in the ring: Arbiter = Number of Total Switches / 2 For example: total number of switches are 8, then 8 / 2 = 4 (4th switch from the Master will be Arbiter). ii) In case an odd number of switches are in the ring Arbiter = Number of Total Switches + 1 / 2 For example total number of switches are 9 then, 9+1 / 2 = 5 (5th switch from the Master will be Arbiter).
When determining the Arbiter and primary link path (whether clockwise or anti-clockwise), port priority plays a significant role. The fiber ports (8 & 9) has priority over copper ports. Generally, lower-number ports have priority over higher-number ports. The higher-priority port-connection direction will be selected as the primary link and the Arbiter will also be selected from the same direction. The arbiter will block one port to keep the flow one-way, to avoid any loops in the network.
Upon failure of any switch in the ring, the Arbiter will release the blocked port and a redundant link will be established. If the Ring Master fails, the new Ring Master will be selected based on the shortest available MAC address.
Q.6 I recently bought a VOLKTEK INS-803. Trying to adjust the network-addresses using a HyperTerminal, I found out that a gateway-address ending with .255 is not accepted (the switch says that the address was incorrect, .254 or .1 work). What's up?
Ans:
In a network environment, the valid IP range is from .00 ~ .255 (e.g. 192.168.0.0 ~ 192.168.0.255) under the single subnet mask (255.255.255.0). This means a total of 256 IP addresses can be used in the current network environment, but the 1st IP address, 192.168.0.0, is reserved for the network itself and the last IP address, 192.168.0.255, is reserved for the broadcasting of the network, so the total number of IP addresses that can actually be assigned to each node is 254 -- and it ranges from 192.168.0.1 ~ 192.168.0.254.
Therefore, in this case the 192.168.0.255 can not be assigned to any node (INS-803), the "legal range" should be from 192.168.0.1 ~ 192.168.0.254
Q.7 What is IGMP Snooping and how does it work?
Ans:
IGMP Snooping provides a method for intelligent, targeted forwarding of multicast packets within a broadcast domain. By snooping IGMP registration information, a distribution list of workstations is formed that determines which end-stations will receive packets with a specific multicast address.
Non-IGMP switches treat IP multicast traffic in the same manner as broadcast traffic -- namely by forwarding frames received on one interface to all other interfaces. This may create excessive traffic on the network and degrade the performance of hosts attached to the switches. Every frame received by each host generates an interrupt that the host must process, robbing cycles that might instead be used by applications.
The larger the network grows; the greater the impact of this extraneous multicast traffic. On the diagrams above and below we see that, by selecting IGMP snooping on the switch, only hosts that are group receivers actually receive multicast traffic.
Q.8 How do web-browser and SNMP network management software work in VOLKTEK products?
Ans:
Web-browser management software allows MIS personnel to monitor and manage network status and devices from a remote site via browser program like Microsoft Internet Explorer or Netscape Communicator. SNMP is the network management standard allowing integration of management tasks within Network Manager System. VOLKTEK products implement SNMP Agent process corresponding to management requests from Network Manager via IP network connected to any RJ-45 port and send out SNMP trap messages for alarm notification.
Q.9 Your IE switches work with SFP modules. Does it mean I can plug every Volktek module (Multi-mode/Single-mode fiber) into your products, or do I have to choose via software what’s single-mode/multi-mode in combination with the optics?
Ans:
Yes, it means you can use any type of SFP module (single mode, multi-mode, WDM) or a combination of both types in our products. This is one of the flexibility features provided by VOLKTEK so that you can simply change the fiber module if any change is required at the fiber side. There is no need to do any settings in the software, as these SFP modules offer plug-n-play technology. Do remember to adapt the fiber cable according to the fiber type.
Q.10 What is a Device Server?
Ans:
A device server is an intelligent and easy-to-use network device that converts between serial packets and network packets. It consists of all the vital components required to provide full network connectivity to virtually any kind of serial device: a reliable TCP/IP protocol stack, remote management capabilities, and both serial and network interfaces in the same box.
Q.11 I cannot adjust the serial port settings for the Device Servers. How will it communicate with my serial devices?
Ans:
Under Device Server mode, the physical interface configuration of Device Server is controlled by Application Program running remotely through RFC2217 protocol via IP network. Tactical software running on PC with Application Program is the implementation of RFC2217 Client. The serial interfaceconfigurations need not be changed manually in Device Server mode.
Q.12 What is TMR and when should I use this?
Ans:
TMR means Termination Resistor. One should enable this function while using RS-485 serial cable longer than 125m. It will reduce the resistance in the serial cable and data can then reach farther (up to 1200 meters).
News Releases
