The SCALANCE XR-500 switches are ideal for use in industrial networks and for integrating the industrial network into an existing corporate network. From the control level to the management level, the switch handles the networking of plant sections as well as distributed field devices and ensures high plant availability with extensive diagnostics options and high transmission speeds. Thanks to the scalability of the basic unit and the optionally available Layer 3 switching function, the network can be established specially for the relevant application, and adapted and expanded at any time.

The SCALANCE XR-500 switches are suitable for establishing electrical and optical Industrial Ethernet line, star or ring topologies, some with integral SFP+ slots that can be optionally equipped with SFP+ plug-in transceivers (10 Gbit/s) or SFP plug-in transceivers (1000 Mbit/s), and up to 12 media module slots that can be optionally equipped with electrical and/or optical 4-port media modules. Thanks to data transfer rates of up to 10 Gbit/s, the switches can be used as an Industrial Ethernet backbone switch and as a hub in the plant bus (redundant connection possible).

The use of media modules or SFP+/SFP enables the following:

• Extension of networks by subsequent insertion of additional media modules in unused media module slots
• Changing of cabling technology, e.g. conversion from copper to fiber-optic cables, or from multimode to single-mode FOC
• Changing of the data transfer rate, e.g. from 1000 Mbit/s to 10 Gbit/s