"Neither snow nor rain nor heat nor gloom of night stays these couriers from the swift completion of their appointed rounds." -Popular US Postal Service motto

Many of my US colleagues have told me that they grew up hearing the phrase above and thinking how reliable their mail service is, even under the harshest conditions, they always got their mail. We in Cisco think that your network should be as reliable and resilient, and work under all conditions, particularly now when the Internet of Things (IoT) requires a level of resiliency at a scale never imagined before, and under conditions beyond what the traditional datacenter or wiring closet can offer.

These days, one of the challenges that the Internet of Things has to deal with is that it "...is already connecting the physical world today, but the real world, unlike the digital world, is much more uncertain and variable. We have to connect objects in unpredictable environments, often subject to Mother Nature or just the movement of our earth and its inhabitants..."

In fact Cisco defines the Internet of Things as "the intelligent connectivity of physical devices driving massive gains in efficiency, business growth and quality of life."

In order to establish intelligent connectivity to physical devices, networking equipment have to be able to coexist in the same environmental in which the physical device are operating.

Very often, these physical devices are operating in harsh environments both from a temperature prospective (like in a smelting furnace or in a mining field located in Siberia), from a dustiness prospective (like in a cement production plant), from a vibrations prospective (like on a train or on a mining truck) etc.

To properly operate in these environments networking devices have to be specifically designed with highly ruggedized casing to protect the device's internal components, and with specific connectors to avoid any possible water penetration or to get unplugged because of hard vibrations.

We're excited to announce today an extension of our Industrial Ethernet portfolio adding a new series of IE2000 IP67 switches!

These new products complement the IE2000, IE3000, IE3010 and CGS2520 switches that have been already deployed in thousands of customers network across various industries like Manufacturing, Mining, Oil & gas, Transportation and Utilities.

The Cisco Industrial Ethernet 2000 IP67 Series switches are a line of switches that integrate Cisco's Leadership in Ethernet switching technology with a highly ruggedized form factor that can be used in extremely harsh environments.

The IE 2000 IP67 series provides customers with ease of use, secure access and industry leading convergence protocols such as Cisco's Resilient Ethernet Protocol (REP). Multiple industries such as automotive, oil and gas, mining, transportation and energy companies are increasingly requiring IP based networks in their production areas.

Cisco's IE2000 IP67 switches comply with many standardized industry specifications that were created to fill business and technical requirements for safety, stability, electromagnetic emissions etc.. This newest addition to the IE2000 family brings the capability to deliver high performance and reliability for data, video, voice in extremely severe locations to enable business continuity.

These new switches are classified as IP67 under the IP Code (Ingress Protection Rating) which classifies and rates the degree of protection provided against intrusion. Thereforethese switches are protected from the ingress of any kind dust (defined by the first number: "6") as well as protected from water immersion in water under defined conditions of pressure and time (up to 1 m of submersion and up to 30 mins,defined by the second number: "7").

This video highlights some of the possible application of the newly released IP67 qualified Industrial Ethernet switch"

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xfxsICWMBzE

These new IP67compliant Industrial Ethernet switches will work well with other IP67 qualified devices from Cisco such as theAironet 1550 Series Outdoor Access Point, the1000 Series Connected Grid Router, or theCisco Video Surveillance 6050 Cameraalong with many others provided byCisco ecosystem Partners.

With the addition of these new series of IP67 certified products Cisco further extend its capabilities to provide intelligent connectivity of physical devices.

The new Cisco Industrial Ethernet 2000 IP67 support the IoT objective of driving massive gains in efficiency, business growth and quality of life, by enabling reliable, resilient and ruggedized connectivity for "things" in very harsh locations, and enabling the amazing growth of devices connected through IP toward the 50 billion of connected things envisaged by various business studies.

For more details about the Cisco IE2000 IP67 please visit www.cisco.com/go/ie2000