Moxa Debuts Secure Hardened Modbus-to-BACnet Gateways Designed for Power Communications
Moxa announced the MGate 5217 Series of Modbus-to-BACnet edge gateway release to support critical power communication needs and challenges.
Moxa recently introduced their new line of secure hardened Modbus-to-BACnet protocol gateways designed to support power communications, the MGate 5217 Series. Moxa is an industry-leading specialist in industrial computing, edge connectivity, and industrial solutions.
They put 30 years of industry experience to work to enable customers in over 80 countries to effectively implement IIoT, including effective gateways.
The Moxa MGate 5217 Series
The new MGate 5217 product line is an industrial edge gateway designed to support both BACnet/IP slave/server and Modbus RTU/ASCII/TCP master/client protocol conversions. It helps industrial devices seamlessly and securely integrate into energy management systems.
The MGate 5217 Series are 2-port BACnet gateways that can convert Modbus RTU/ASCII/TCP to BACnet/IP protocol and address power communication challenges. Image courtesy of Moxa.
To further enhance gateway security, the MGate 5217 series protocol is based on the IEC 62443 standard.
What the MGate 5217 Offers
These gateways are DIN-rail mountable and available in 600-point and 1200-point models.
MGate 5217 gateways are designed to be easy to configure thanks to an intuitive user interface and can generate Modbus commands by importing an Excel spreadsheet (which also makes it easy to edit the commands).
It is worthy of note that the Moxa MGate 5271 gateways also support both the Modbus and BACnet/IP Protocol Traffic Monitor and Diagnostics.
These tools provide efficient access to critical data for easy troubleshooting, especially during the installation stage.
They also support virtual nodes so that each Modbus device is treated as a BACnet/IP device and has built-in Ethernet cascading to make wiring easier.
Critical Power Communication
The Moxa MGate 5217 gateway server product line is engineered to address power communications needs, which poses various challenges.
Critical power communication involves applications where security vulnerabilities and failures are not acceptable, such as data centers. For example, there must be reliable and secure communication between SCADA systems and the devices that monitor them.
The Moxa MGate 5217 series addresses security issues related to critical power communication through various features, including whitelisting, password policy, and account management.
It also includes a TLS secure connection that further enhances the connectivity security by preventing unwanted access, thus allowing access only by authorized users.
The Moxa MGate 5217 has a rugged design for use in harsh industrial environments. Image courtesy of Pixabay.
The Moxa MGate 5217 series of gateways also support enhanced reliability by engineering them to have a wide operating temperature range of -40 to 75°C and 2 kV serial port isolation.
To further support power communication, the Moxa MGate 5217 is designed to make the installation and maintenance of multiple devices (e.g., UPS controllers, power meters) as simple as possible.
The Moxa MGate 5217 series of gateways are now available for purchase and include an industry-leading 5-year warranty. They will no doubt heavily contribute to the effective implementation and integration of power communications.
