Magnum 6KL Managed Edge Switch Installation and User Guide
11/09
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NOTE for Power Substations: In support of the IEEE 1613 Class 2 standard, GCI
advises that, for substation applications, the serial (RJ45) 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.
4.0 OPERATION
This chapter describes the functions and operation of the Magnum 6KL Switch.
4.1 Switching
Functionality
A
Magnum 6KL provides switched connectivity at Ethernet wire-speed among
all of its ports. The Magnum 6KL 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 6KL, but local
traffic on a port will not consume any of the bandwidth on any other port.
The Magnum 6KL 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 6KL 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 6KL 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 6KL 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.
