November 20, 2008 - The NET232 jr is a tiny serial to Ethernet adapter, more commonly known as a “Device Server.” It is a small box, 55mm x 30mm x 24mm, with an RJ45 Ethernet port on one side, and a short RJ45 serial cable on the other. The device requires a 3.3 volt power source on the serial end to operate.
NET232 jr. comes with valuable features that makes it more powerful than just a protocol converter. This handy device has a built in webserver as well as email notification capability upon triggered events. Installation and configuration is a snap, just plug the serial side into the RJ45 powered serial port of a device, and plug the other side into the Ethernet infrastructure. It is set by default to obtain an IP address automatically if DHCP service is running on the network.
(Locating the unit on the subnet is easy with an included software utility). If a static address is needed, simply access the web configuration and make the changes required. One of the major benefits of having a dedicated device server as an edge device on a network is the ability to exchange serial devices without changing an IP address, and eliminating a call to IT. End users can plug and unplug different printers, for example, without needing to know or care about how the NET232 jr. is configured.
They don’t need to know anything about RS232 or Ethernet at all. The NET232 jr. is still accessible from the same IP address, and data access is easy. Technicians can also poll the device with SNMP. Another possible implementation provides for tunneling of serial data over Ethernet between two serial devices.
To accomplish tunneling, connect a NET232 jr. to each serial device and configure them to talk to each other when they have data to send. There are no drivers to load in either implementation, and the conversion takes place transparently to any attached unit. You can even access or control devices from over a WAN by setting a gateway IP address.
All this functionality in a small form factor makes the NET232 jr. a smart and economical choice.