No matter it's an industrial switch ports industrial switch or a business switch, there are always many ports, including common industrial switch 4 ports and industrial switch 8 ports, and different ports look different. This paper will introduce the position and function of all ports, and make it easy for you to distinguish each type of port. The port on the switch is usually made up of the RJ45 electric port, SFP optical port, console port and management port (MGMT).
1. Industrial Switch Ports：RJ45 electric port
The RJ45 electrical port usually has the following several forms:
ü Unshielded (UTP) structure, is suitable for general indoor environments with low interference, used in family routers, fiber optical modem and other products;
ü The metal shielded structure (STP) is suitable for industrial environments with strong electromagnetic interference, and most industrial switches adopt such shielded RJ45 ports.
ü The RJ45 port with lamp can be visually viewed the network communication and the data receiving state.
POE, which means the Ethernet power supply of the RJ45 port, widely adopted on industrial switch ports and products like gigabit solar POE switch & industrial unmanaged ethernet, can transmit the power at the same time, without additional power cables. The interface form is the same as the normal electric port.
It shows as below, the RJ45 port of the Rayin industrial switch:
2. The optical port(SFP/SFP+/SFP28)
ü SFP: Gigabit, standard rate of 1 Gbps, also known as Gigabit SFP
ü SFP+: 10 Gigabit, standard rate of 10 Gbps, it is a high-speed upgraded version of SFP
ü SFP28: 25 Gbps, the bandwidth is 2.5 times that of SFP+, still using the small-sized shell of SFP, and backward compatible with SFP/SFP+;
The shell sizes of SFP, SFP+ and SFP28 are uniform, and the ports are backward compatible.
It shows as below, the optical port of the Rayin industrial switch:
3. Console port
The console port of industrial switch, widely equipped on products including industrial switch ports, gigabit 12v poe switch and industrial switch 16 ports, is often used in the metal shielded RJ45 port, which is not a data transfer port, only as a local transportation channel for equipment, for equipment factory initialization configuration, network fault checking and ground emergency maintenance. Use the special RJ45 transfer DB9 to test the cable, and the computer terminal completes the command line operation.
It shows as below, the console port of the Rayin industrial switch:
Except for RJ45 port serving as the console debugging, some models of gigabit solar poe switch and industrial unmanaged ethernet also use the USB, Type-c debugging port, which is suitable for the modern, non-serial laptop, without additional transfer and the wire is universal, which can be the plug and play, with the compact structure and simply operation, and the bottom debugging function is completely consistent with the traditional serial port. USB-based Console ports come with built-in USB-to-serial chips.
Most Windows, Linux and macOS systems have built-in drivers for plug-and-play use. Type-C ports support reversible blind insertion with higher plug-and-play tolerance, making operation less error in dark environments.
4. Management port(MGMT)
The management port,one key part of industrial switch ports, is also widely used in the metal shielded RJ45 port of products such as industrial switch 5 ports, industrial unmanaged ethernet and solar POE switch, which is consistent with the console debugging, not carrying the flow of business, and is an independent management channel. The remote configuration, state monitor and fault disposal of the equipment can be accessed from the business network, and even if the business link is interrupted, the equipment can be managed and improved the reliability of the network.
Rayin Technology’s IS201 series reuse interface design, the console debugging and MGMT management is integrated in the same shielded RJ45, eliminating the double interface layout and saving the equipment panel space. IS201 series’s single port supports both local serial debugging and independent remote management.
5. FAQ
Are RJ45 electrical ports the same as POE ports?
A: POE port is a special RJ45 electric port, which can also power the camera and wireless AP. Ordinary RJ45 only transports data and cannot power electricity.
What causes the RJ45 port indicator light to stay off?
A: Possible causes include damaged network cables / poorly crimped crystal heads; the peer device is unpowered; the port is disabled via background management; abnormal port rate negotiation; hardware failure of the port.
SFP optical modules are divided into single-mode and multi-mode. How to distinguish their application scenarios?
A: Multi-mode SFP: within a short distance of 550 meters, used for interconnection of equipment in computer rooms; Single-mode SFP: can work for several kilometers up to hundreds of kilometers, applied to long-distance wiring in residential community and industrial parks.
How many PoE standards are there and what are the differences in power?
A: 802.3af (15.4W), 802.3at (30W), 802.3bt (60W/90W). High-power devices ,such as high-speed PTZ cameras, industrial APs, require PoE ports compliant with at/bt standards.
6. Conclusion
In this paper, we can clearly distinguish the functional differences between the different ports such as the MGMT management port, the ordinary electric port, the POE power port and the SFP fiber port. Although all kinds of ports follow the uniform industry electrical standards, different manufacturers have a different idea in material selection and internal structural materials, and there are also many products on the market that cut corners in production. The industrial equipment has long time running in high and low temperature, strong electric magnetic interference environment, to ensure the long-term stable operation, it always need the solid hardware plan, including shielded housing, the thick slik film and so on. Rayin technology keep adopting industrial materials and prioritize product performance all the time.
