News
Rockwell Automation Releases Its First Router With Dual VPN and Firewall Capabilities
January 2014 by Marc Jacob
The Allen-Bradley Stratix 5900 services router is the first in the Rockwell Automation network product portfolio to deliver virtual private network (VPN) and firewall capabilities simultaneously. These capabilities make the router well-suited for securing cell/area zones, as well as connecting to a cell/area zone from a remote location over an untrusted network.
The Stratix 5900 services router expands a portfolio of jointly developed industrial products from Rockwell Automation and Cisco that are helping manufacturers build a unified, secure environment from the enterprise to end devices in an industrial automation control system. With VPN and firewall capabilities, the router restricts and regulates communication to help ensure a security perimeter is maintained and information exchange crossing the security boundary is not tampered with or interrupted. VPNs can also create a secure tunnel for server-machine communications to help protect cell/area zones from other machines in the facility. Firewall capabilities can monitor and block an input or an output that does not meet the firewall’s configured policy. When combined, VPN and firewalling create a more robust, more secure network.
The router also enables manufacturing locations to connect to and communicate with remote locations and substations. For example, a remote machine – whether 100 feet or 1,000 miles away – can connect to a plant-based machine using the services router. This is a common application for the oil and gas and water wastewater industries where equipment dispersed across vast distances needs to communicate with each other to operate a common process.
The ruggedised Stratix 5900 services router runs on Cisco IOS, and includes a wide area network (WAN) port and four Fast Ethernet-ports. The hardware includes embedded features such as: Network Address Translation (NAT), NBAR protocol filtering, Access Control Lists (ACL) and Quality of Service (QoS) for prioritisation. It has extended shock and vibration capability, comes with a DIN rail mount, and operates in a temperature range of minus 25 C to 60 C making it suitable for industrial applications.
The Stratix 5900 services router is currently available and complements the full portfolio of Stratix switches and the Allen-Bradley ControlLogix EtherNet/IP secure communication module (1756-EN2TSC) from Rockwell Automation.
