Red Lion Controls, the global experts in communication, monitoring and control for industrial automation and networking, recently expanded its industrial Ethernet switch family by introducing the new ET-8MG-OEM board-level, all-gigabit switch.

The fully managed Sixnet (News - Alert) series ET-8MG-OEM switches are delivered in a compact PC 104 footprint and provide a commercial off-the-shelf solution for OEM customers.

Officials said that the switches also provide rugged, industrial-grade networking designed to withstand the harshest environments.

Featuring a flexible board-level design, ET-8MG-OEM switches allow integration into embedded applications with support for a combination of up to eight 10/100/1000Base copper and 100/1000Base SFP or SFF fiber ports.

OEM customers, with the help of these switches are able to add industrial-grade networking capabilities to their products both quickly and cost-effectively.

In a press statement, Diane Davis, director of product management for Ethernet networking at Red Lion Controls, said, "Gigabit Ethernet is becoming the standard for connecting IP-based components of automated devices in industrial, utility and military applications. In order to maximize these investments, OEM partners must provide reliable, purpose-built Ethernet switches with sophisticated features. Our new, all-Gigabit switches are designed to help our OEM partners meet the diverse, rugged networking requirements of customers across a variety of industries."

Further, Red Lion's ET-8MG-OEM switches support a wide range of operating temperatures and a robust managed feature set. It offers manufacturers a fully functional, turnkey industrial Gigabit Ethernet solution.

Flexible configuration for up to eight copper or fiber SFP/SFF ports, 5.0 VDC power input, easy configuration via Web, Telnet or CLI, TSL and broadcast and multicast storm protection are some of the other features of ET-8MG-OEM managed switches.

In November 2013, TMCnet reported that Red Lion Controls’ newest generation of Human Machine Interfaces, the Graphite series of advanced operator interface panels and its N-Tron NT24k managed Gigabit Ethernet switches received multiple awards during the 2013 Industrial Automation Show, in Shanghai.