BELDEN has introduced to the Europe, Middle East and Africa region its new PowerMICE, the third generation of the Modular Industrial Communication Equipment family from its Hirschmann product portfolio.

The company is a global leader in signal transmission solutions for mission-critical applications.

“This modular switch for DIN rail mounting offers comprehensive network protection for the first time,” it said in a statement. The switch incorporates security mechanisms that regulate network access and protect against attacks. These include port security, DHCP Snooping, Dynamic ARP Inspection, IP Source Guard, ingress/egress ACL, sFlow, Storm Control, automatic Denial-of-Service prevention and port access control via 802.1x including multi-client authentication, Radius VLAN/policy assignment and guest/unauthenticated VLAN. Hardware redundancy methods such as PRP (Parallel Redundancy Protocol) and HSR (High Availability Seamless Redundancy) also ensure uninterrupted data communication. As a result, this IPv6-ready switch allows applications to be implemented where both an extremely high level of network security and network availability are required. It can also be seamlessly integrated into Profinet and EtherNet/IP environments. The integrated PoE Plus function allows for cost-effective power supply for terminal equipment.

The new PowerMICE is available in three basic versions for 12, 20 or 28 ports and comprises a switch unit with integrated backplane and a four-port gigabit Ethernet media module. Depending on the version, the switch can be individually fitted with up to six additional 4-port Fast Ethernet media modules for twisted pair cables, different optical fibre types or I/O functionality.