Cisco IE 2000 switch applications - Metasys - LIT-12013055 - Gateway/Router - Cisco Switch - 12.0

The IE 2000 switches selected in the Johnson Controls® catalog as access switches can be configured to manage rings using Media Redundancy Protocol (MRP). See Figure 1 label 1.

A ring topology improves network availability. When the ring is closed it is in the normal state, and the switch sends data to the devices in the ring through only one of the two ring ports. The switch manages the physical ring as a single logical chain. However, if the ring opens it is in a failure state. When this occurs, the switch will detect the break and begin sending data over both switch ports. The switch then manages the physical ring as two logical chains. Therefore, the failure of a single device does not block communication to other devices, and the failure of a single cable does not block communication to any devices. You may also configure a port for a chain or home-run connection. When you design an IP network using the JCI IP Network Wizard, unused ports are configured for no access to the network.

The IE 2000 switch is a managed switch that has several traffic management features. However, you must enable these features in the switch configuration. The workflow for Johnson Controls systems is to use the Metasys IP Network Wizard to develop the switch configuration in the branch office, and then load the configuration onto the switch at the time of installation. This guide does not cover switch configuration. For information on switch configuration, refer to the Cisco IE 2000 Software Configuration Guide available at: https://www.cisco.com/c/en/us/td/docs/switches/lan/cisco_ie2000/software/release/15-0_1_ey/configuration/guide/scg-ie2000.html

In some situations, the IP network Wizard supports another application for a Cisco IE 2000 switch. One switch can be given an additional role as a central router for the Metasys IP network. This can be an effective way to handle routing in networks that are not quite large enough to justify the cost of an aggregation switch. One possibility is for one access switch to serve both as an access switch and the central router. A second possibility is for one switch to serve as a dedicated central router. Note that when the IP Network Wizard specifies a Cisco IE 2000 as a dedicated router, it specifies a switch that does not support MRP.