GarrettCom MAGNUM 6KM manual Operation, Switching Functionality, Filtering and Forwarding

Magnum 6KM Mobile Ethernet Switch Installation and User Guide 07/10

NOTE for Power Substations: In support of the IEEE 1613 Class 2 standard, GCI advises that, for substation applications, the (M12) console ports are intended for temporary connectivity to other equipment such as PCs. Since the console port connection is temporary, it is excluded from IEEE 1613 packet-loss testing per the 1613 standard-defined test procedure.

4.0OPERATION

This chapter describes the functions and operation of the Magnum 6KM Switch.

4.1Switching Functionality

A Magnum 6KM provides switched connectivity at Ethernet wire-speed among

all of its ports. The Magnum 6KM supports10/100Mbs for copper media and 100Mb separate traffic domains for fiber ports to maximize bandwidth utilization and network performance. All ports can communicate to all other ports in a Magnum 6KM, but local traffic on a port will not consume any of the bandwidth on any other port.

The Magnum 6KM units are plug-and-play devices. There is no software configuring necessary to be done for basic operation at installation or for maintenance. There is an optional Half / Full duplex mode and 10Mbps or 100Mbps selection for the switched ports which must be configured through MNS software per unit as per the requirement. The internal functions of both are described below.

Filtering and Forwarding

Each time a packet arrives on one of the switched ports, the decision is taken to either filter or to forward the packet. Packets whose source and destination addresses are on the same port segment will be filtered, constraining them to that one port and relieving the rest of the network from having to process them. A packet whose destination address is on another port segment will be forwarded to the appropriate port, and will not be sent to the other ports where it is not needed. Traffic needed for maintaining the un- interrupted operation of the network (such as occasional multi-cast packets) is forwarded to all ports.

The Magnum 6KM Switches operate in the store-and-forward switching mode, which eliminates bad packets and enables peak performance to be achieved when there is heavy traffic on the network.

Address Learning

All Magnum 6KM units have address table capacities of 8K node addresses suitable for use in larger networks. They are self-learning, so as nodes are added, removed or moved from one segment to another, the 6KM Switch automatically keeps up with node locations.

An address-aging algorithm causes least-used addresses to fall out in favor for frequently-used addresses. To reset the address buffer, cycle power down-and-up.

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