Red Lion enables more secure communications to IIoT cloud platforms

By OEM Update Editorial June 21, 2017 2:04 pm IST

Red Lion Controls, the global experts in communication, monitoring and control for industrial automation and networking, announced that its Sixnet series RAM industrial cellular RTUs and wired routers now provide enhanced communication security using Distrix Networks software-defined networking (SDN) technology.

Distrix’s SDN technology is loaded into RAM devices, speeding and simplifying deployment of communication networks between connected industrial devices and IIoT cloud platforms or providing remote machine access with unsurpassed security. This functionality enables organisations to quickly and easily establish secure communication regardless of whether the backhaul medium is cellular or wired.

This enhancement to Red Lion’s RAM products provides industry-leading security and redundancy, improving on traditional VPN communications, which relied on difficult to manage point-to-point tunnels. The addition of SDN technology provides flexibility, scalability and resiliency to legacy serial-based infrastructures or to present-day IP-based networks.

“Customers need the ability to push data to an IIoT cloud platform while ensuring it is securely transmitted over a scalable and flexible architecture,” said Colin Geis, Director of Product Management, IIoT at Red Lion Controls. “Red Lion’s RAM devices offer the industry’s widest array of pre-configured IIoT cloud platform integrations, and are now bolstered with Distrix-SDN technology, which provides greater security than traditional VPNs or private APNs. RAM products are known for their robust reliability and automation-rich features for monitoring and controlling remote assets, but now that we have partnered with Distrix to add SDN capabilities, customers now have the peace of mind that their data is protected from end to end.”

Distrix software embeds directly on RAM devices, allowing customers to quickly deploy and manage a secure software-defined industrial network. Capabilities include highly secure end-to-end tunnel connections without common network security risks and complexity, improved network redundancy, sensor data enhancement for analytics as well as simplified machine-to-machine process automation.

In addition to highly secure cloud integration, RAM products also provide a powerful event engine and an integrated I/O database which streamlines the creation and storage of data tags. The combination of industrial automation capabilities, secure and reliable communication and easy-to-connect cloud support provides customers with a seamless IIoT solution.