Enhancing Availability and Redundancy in Industrial Networking

Wired and Wireless Resilience is Key for MWL Operations

Your Network is the Backbone of Industrial Connectivity

In today’s dynamic world of Manufacturing, Warehousing, and Logistics (MWL), you need to be confident in your ability to move fast, respond to new challenges, and maximize output. More than ever, a resilient network infrastructure is essential to sustaining your mission-critical operations. From robotics to real-time monitoring systems, industrial environments depend on wired and wireless networks for high-speed, high-availability performance. Downtime is costly—and often avoidable.

Industry 4.0 is rapidly transforming manufacturing environments, accelerating automation and interconnectivity. To keep pace, you must build networks that are redundant, scalable, and secure—to help ensure your operations continue running smoothly even when components fail.

Wired Network Resilience: Designing for Redundancy and Speed

1. Eliminating Single Points of Failure  

Wired networks are fundamental to MWL environments. However, legacy wired infrastructures often rely on a single uplink or power source for critical devices. Even a minor disruption at one of these single points of failure (SPOFs) can halt bring your operations to a halt. By taking a few simple steps to enhance redundancy upfront, you can minimize the risk—much higher costs—of unplanned downtime. RUCKUS® recommends: 

• Deploy dual-homing devices to multiple upstream switches or controllers 
• Reinforce core switches with redundant uplinks and power inputs  
• Implement Spanning Tree Protocol (STP) for automatic traffic rerouting 
• Utilize Link Aggregation (LAG) for higher bandwidth and built-in failover

2. Preventing Network Bottlenecks

Industry 4.0 environments must support a flood of new devices, data, and processes. As more IoT devices and automation platforms come online, legacy switches and limited bandwidth can throttle performance. MWL network environments need performance and intelligence designed for today’s demands. RUCKUS recommends:

• Upgrade to 10GbE, 25GbE, or 100GbE at the core 
• Use Quality of Service (QoS) to prioritize critical traffic 
• Segment with VLANs to reduce cross-zone interference

3. Maximizing Uptime for PoE-Dependent Devices

Power over Ethernet (PoE) offers tremendous deployment flexibility for devices like cameras, sensors, and access points. However, a single power disruption can impact multiple systems. Power redundancy is key to keeping these essential devices up and running. RUCKUS recommends:

• Deploy Redundant Power Supply (RPS) units for switches 
• Install Uninterruptible Power Supply (UPS) to protect uptime 
• Plan PoE budgets and architectures carefully to avoid overload 

Wireless Network Resilience: Mobility Without Compromise

Although wired is the foundation for industrial environments, wireless is the game-changer that enables of industrial mobility. From barcode scanners, to tablets, automated guided vehicles (AGVs), and smart sensors wireless technology unleashes new levels of agility and flexibility. But MWL environments also present unique challenges, especially with tall racks, metal shelving, and narrow aisles.

RF Design for High-Density, High-Ceiling Environments

All too often, Wi-Fi designs only account for floor-level coverage. But in today’s fast-paced warehouse environments, operations are vertical—with movement up and down racks via forklifts, drones, or lifts. 

Directional antennas placed for aisle coverage often leave vertical gaps in coverage. As clients move upward, signal strength can drop—causing disconnects. RUCKUS recommends:

• Conduct 3D RF planning to consider ceiling height, racking structure, and reflective surfaces 
• Choose a portfolio of AP types, including omni-directional, directional, and external antenna models that are tailored to specific areas 
• Adjust tilt and placement to maintain vertical coverage and reliable signal strength

Redundancy in Wireless Infrastructure

Like their wired counterparts, wireless networks demand high availability and the highest possible performance. To keep Wi-Fi reliable across critical operations:

• Implement mesh failover between APs for path redundancy 
• Use dual-controller or cloud-managed architectures for automatic failover 
• Apply band steering and load balancing to optimize AP performance
• Enable fast roaming protocols (802.11r/k/v) for seamless device transitions

Cybersecurity and Network Resilience

As networks become more connected to more devices, processes, applications, and users, they become more vulnerable. Industrial networks—especially those integrating OT and IT systems—require a holistic approach to minimize risk across the entire organization.

1. Protecting Against Cyber Threats

Today’s legacy infrastructure weren’t built to protect today’s highly diverse, edge-centric MWL environments. They often lack robust security measures, leaving the door open to breaches. RUCKUS recommends:

• Implement Role-Based Access Control (RBAC) for device and user permissions 
• Use VLAN segmentation to isolate critical systems 
• Require Multi-Factor Authentication (MFA) for network access

2. Real-Time Monitoring and Incident Response

• Modern cyber attackers move fast to spot vulnerabilities and exploit weaknesses. That means your threat detection and response must be proactive. RUCKUS recommends:
• Use real-time monitoring tools to track anomalies and usage patterns 
• Integrate AI-driven analytics for predictive alerts 
• Conduct regular penetration testing to identify and patch vulnerabilities

Maximizing Availability in Large-Scale Environments

For MWL operations, uptime is non-negotiable. Fortunately, these infrastructure design strategies can help you maintain uninterrupted connectivity across both wired and wireless domains:

1. Link Aggregation for Seamless Failover

Combine multiple physical connections into a single logical link for: 

• Greater bandwidth 
• Automatic failover 
• Balanced traffic distribution

2. Intelligent Traffic Routing

MWL networks contend with constant change and need the ability to adjust quickly to time-sensitive demands and new business challenges. Implement software-defined networking (SDN) principles to dynamically route traffic and balance loads—especially during peak hours or failure scenarios.

3. Future Proofing Through Scalable Infrastructure

Industrial networks often rely on outdated hardware that can’t keep up with growing data demands. To meet today’s requirements and be ready for tomorrow’s, you need a flexible, future-ready infrastructure. RUCKUS recommends: 

• Adopt modular and stackable switches that can evolve with your organization 
• Leverage AI-based monitoring tools for insights 
• Improve readiness for Wi-Fi 7, multi-gigabit PoE, and IoT expansion

Conclusion: A Resilient Network is Your Competitive Advantage

A high-availability wired and wireless network is the backbone of smart industrial operations. Today's changes are challenging but offer opportunities to gain a competitive edge. With careful planning and a trusted technology partner, MWL organizations can address failure points, coverage gaps, security threats, and scalability limitations, to:

• Maintain continuous uptime 
• Maximize productivity 
• Enable seamless mobility and automation 
• Minimize risk and secure mission-critical operations

Ready to Modernize Your MWL Network?

Let’s talk. Whether you’re designing a future-ready infrastructure or enhancing an existing one, RUCKUS can help you build a network that’s fast, secure, and built to last. So, you can spend less time troubleshooting, and more time driving innovation and business agility.