AMR Corp taps GarrettCom for industrial Ethernet in aircraft maintenance

AMR Corp has been making use of Z-Technologies’ process control expertise for many years. When plans called for creating a profit centre, Z-Tech helped the facility develop a system to collect and communicate information on each job for the IT department. The initial plan was to maintain the legacy Ethernet system using GarrettCom’s 3000X Series Hubs. This bus-oriented implementation ran at 10 Mb using BNC connectors and cabling (an older Ethernet cable type) and fibre. Media converters were used to integrate serial lines.

The final solution takes advantage of the in-place fibre loop to leapfrog to current-generation 1 Gb backbone bandwidth capability including port modularity, network management software, and resilient ring structure support – all for less than a 10% increase in investment over the 10 Mb legacy concept

A combination of 6K25 and 6K16V managed switches, which support Ethernet bandwidth from 10 Mb to 1 Gb, provides the backbone for the facility. The network is currently utilizing a 100 Mb backbone; it can upgrade at any time using plug-in modules. The modular ports capability and the fibre built-in features of the 6Ks made them an ideal fit for the job.

Download application note:  AMR Corp taps GarrettCom for industrial Ethernet in aircraft maintenance [PDF]