When extending networks to industrial application environments, enterprises must overcome a number of challenges – most notably, reliable connectivity. Industrial environments are subject to extreme temperatures, dust, water splash and vibration. The ability to deploy and manage industrial networks remotely is critical due to the large scale of operations and the inhospitable environments in which some of these deployments reside. What’s more, these industrial environments need highly secure, rugged routers to overcome the growing number of cyber-attacks they face.
To meet these challenges and more, we’re excited to announce that the Cisco IR1101 Industrial Integrated Services Router has won the Best of Show in the Industry Network Category at Interop Tokyo 2020.
The Cisco IR1101 is a secure, compact, ruggedized, high-bandwidth router with a modular design that extends connectivity to the edge. Its highly compact form factor makes it ideal for remote asset management across multiple industrial vertical markets such as transportation, public safety, utilities, manufacturing, oil and gas and others.
The Cisco IR1101’s durability makes it ideal for challenging industrial and distributed IoT deployments. For example, one Cisco customer, a large department of transportation, leverages the router for remote asset management of critical public infrastructure at traffic intersections and freeways. The department needed to create an efficient process for emergency response vehicle operators to report data by connecting a number of elements such as traffic signals, roadway sensors, weather sensors, and digital signage. The IR1101 provides redundant LTE WAN connectivity for increased reliability with the new pluggable LTE-MNA module for public safety and first responders. With intelligence at the edge, the department of transportation can accelerate its decision making for mission-critical applications as well as improve first responder safety.
Because its hardware is highly modular and expandable, the IR1101 is designed to future-proof industrial IoT deployments. The pluggable modules provide the flexibility to add or upgrade WAN and storage components as technologies and business needs evolve. Its design allows enterprises to upgrade to new communications protocols when they become available (i.e. 5G), avoiding costly rip-and-replace each time a new connectivity technology comes along. It delivers secure IoT connectivity for both today and tomorrow.
The Cisco IR1101 is also SD-WAN capable. Its SD-WAN architecture provides a unified view with a single pane of glass, bringing simplicity at scale to the IoT edge. With SD-WAN on IR1101, enterprises can effectively manage thousands of disparate locations remotely without dispatching technicians, saving on operations costs. It enables automation of complex security setups at the IoT edge so you can prevent attacks before they happen and protect your business.
As a further example of the power of the Cisco IR1101, a large American power company is building a secure LTE network to resolve connectivity challenges for distribution automation in its secondary substations. Our latest pluggable, gigabit-class category 18 LTE module supports private LTE bands including CBRS in the US and high speed for industrial environments. The smart grid certification, increased EMC protection, SCADA, and industry protocols support make it ideal for this type of use case. The utilities company is able to improve overall power distribution efficiency and quality through Volt-Var optimization, saving millions of dollars. The IR1101 can be managed remotely through our cloud-based gateway dashboard making it easy to deploy and manage and providing operational visibility across hundreds of distributed sites.
Read more about the Cisco IR1101 and contact us to discuss how it can help you solve connectivity challenges for your use case.
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