InRow Cable Connetions - Why are two Ethernet Cables required?

[BillP]

This question was originally posted by John on APC forums on 8/20/2013

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In setting up an InRow, I discovered that you need to connect an Ethernet cable to the comms card for network capability AND you need to connect all the devices together using the A-link connections so the units will communicate as a group. That is a lot of cable. Can I only connect them using the Comms connection to my network and then tell them which units are in the same group?

Please advise if I can or if not, why? does it have to do with not flooding the network lines with data packets between the units?

Regards,

J

[BillP]

This reply was originally posted by Angela on APC forums on 8/20/2013

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L2SupportServices-Cooling - could you help with this one please? Thanks!

[BillP · Accepted solution]

This reply was originally posted by L2SupportServices-Cooling on APC forums on 8/20/2013

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Sure thing!

J.Smith:

In regards to the various connections on the unit, unfortunately group communication cannot be done via the ethernet connection. This connection is only for communication to the web interface of the device, as well as other forms of network communication such as email or SNMP. The group communication is done via A-link ports, and while they use ethernet connections to make the cabling standard, it is effectively a serial bus, and shares nothing with normal network communication, hence why it is done this way. I apologize for any inconvenience, but if you have any other questions, please feel free to ask. Thank you.