Cisco Catalyst IE9300 switch offers enterprise-grade capabilities into industrial networks

Cisco expanded on Thursday its Catalyst 9000 switching portfolio that is purpose-built for harsh outdoor environments to bring enterprise-grade capabilities into industrial networks with its Catalyst IE9300 Rugged Series. The platform is built to withstand harsh environments typically found in manufacturing, energy, transportation, mining, smart cities, and oil and gas, and is designed for outdoor enclosures.

The Catalyst Industrial Ethernet 9300 switches are targeted at industrial environments that need increased fiber connectivity, advanced redundancy and resiliency, and an extra degree of security. As operational connectivity in industrial spaces is growing exponentially and organizations are on the looking out for improving efficiencies, employee safety, business agility, and support hybrid work, the Cisco Catalyst IE9300 Rugged Series switches deliver 28 Gigabit Ethernet (GbE) interfaces that deliver high-speed GbE connectivity in a compact form factor. 

The IE9300 Rugged Series switches offer resiliency enabled by features, such as dual ring design through four GbE uplink ports, Resilient Ethernet Protocol (REP), Parallel Redundancy Protocol (PRP), PROFINET, Media Redundancy Protocol (MRP) ring, High Availability Seamless Redundancy (HSR) ring, EtherChannel, integrated redundant power supplies, and ‘dying gasp.’ It also offers a zero-touch replacement for middle-of-the-night or middle-of-nowhere failures, line-rate and low-latency forwarding with advanced hardware assist features, simplified software management with universal images, and supports industrial automation protocols EtherNet/IP (CIP) and PROFINET.

Targeted at supporting critical infrastructures, the Catalyst IE9300 integrates automation, segmentation, and additional capabilities with industrial protocols in a form factor targeted at industrial spaces, Cisco said in a media statement. The unified solution for IT/OT infrastructures ensures business success while working on modernizing and securing utility substations, railway trackside and level crossings, roadway and toll plazas, oil and gas pipelines, it added.

Operational networks are often less secure, unsegmented, and manually managed with fewer capabilities to proactivity resolve issues, Vikas Butaney, wrote in a company blog post. “Rapid growth in industrial IoT demands a new type of network with enterprise-grade security, automation, and performance combined with industrial features to meet compliance and use case requirements. And that is what Cisco is bringing to the table across our entire Industrial Networking portfolio with our newest industrial switch,” he added.

Based on the Unified Access Data Plane (UADP) ASIC silicon, Catalyst IE9300 is purpose-built for IT and operational technology (OT) environments to automate network operations, bring zero trust security to operational spaces, and offer high port density with switch stacking with centralized management, according to Cisco. Operational connectivity in industrial spaces is growing exponentially as organizations seek to improve efficiencies, employee safety, business agility, and support hybrid work. As the operational world evolves, IT expertise is required to scale and secure the network as OT systems are brought onto the corporate networks, the company added.

The Catalyst IE9300 series offers enterprise-grade switching in a ruggedized form factor with advanced visibility, security, and edge computing, Cisco said. The Cisco Catalyst IE9300 Rugged Series can be managed with the management tool, Cisco DNA Center, and can be set up with a completely redesigned user-friendly modern GUI tool called WebUI. The platform supports Full Flexible NetFlow (FNF) for real-time visibility into traffic patterns and threat analysis with Cisco Secure Network Analytics.

Based on the Cisco IOS-XE operating system, the Catalyst IE9300 series provides security through the Cisco Identity Services Engine, enabling customers to leverage their IT knowledge and existing investments to modernize and secure their industrial and outdoor networks.

The Catalyst IE9300 series also enhances network scalability and reliability with features such as the ability to stack up to eight switches and manage them as one, zero packet loss failure recovery, and high precision time synchronization. Using unprecedented visibility to assets and applications, the series also improves efficiencies by identifying connected endpoints for asset inventory, automatically enforcing QoS (quality of service) policies via application traffic recognition, and proactively detecting and resolving issues with network health monitoring.

It also assesses and strengthens the security posture of connected industrial assets and enables zero-trust security with the embedded Cisco Cyber Vision sensor and SD-Access fabric edge capability.

As Schneider Electric and World Wide Technology (WWT) advance the smart grid to ensure energy availability, enterprise-grade switching capabilities in industrial form factors are crucial to ensure substations are efficient and resilient.

“We’re delighted to see the Cisco Catalyst Industrial Ethernet 9300 switch come to market this year as it brings unprecedented performance and fiber scalability to electric grid networks, together with native cybersecurity features,” Jim Simonelli, CTO, Secure Power Division, Schneider Electric, said in the Cisco release. “In combination with the APC by Schneider Electric Uninterruptible Power Supplies (UPS), these technologies will elevate electric grid reliability to a new level.”

“To truly modernize the power grid, utilities need to ensure their substations are efficient and resilient,” said Adam Nathan, Utility & Energy Industry Practice Manager at WWT. “Developed with the robust needs of the industrial world in mind, including adhering to the stringent IEC 61850 networking standards, the new Cisco Catalyst IE9300 switch empowers utilities to accelerate substation modernization with the agile connectivity needed to power a high-demand future.”

Cisco had in June 2020 partnered with Schneider Electric to bridge OT and IT environments in building management systems. As part of the partnership, the companies offered a joint solution that combined IT and operational building control together in a secure and efficient IP network solution.

Anna Ribeiro

Industrial Cyber News Editor. Anna Ribeiro is a freelance journalist with over 14 years of experience in the areas of security, data storage, virtualization and IoT.