It's been a long time since I've checked in on the OmniSwitch line of Ethernet switches, and it turns out Alcatel-Lucent recently added a twist to the lineup.

Late last month, the company introduced a "hardened" version of its 6850 LAN switch, the OmniSwitch 6855. (Compare Access Switch products.) This Gigabit Ethernet switch is built for physical environments that are physically demanding, and Alcatel-Lucent claims it offers the highest density of Gigabit Ethernet ports in a ruggedized chassis, at 24 ports in a 1 rack-unit-high chassis.

By ruggedized, the company means it can work in temperatures ranging from -40 degrees to 75 degrees Celsius. It is built to withstand "challenging" shock, vibration and electrical conditions that you might find in utilities, transportation systems and defense installations.

There are four models - a 10-port fanless fiber-optic model and a 14-port copper model, in addition to the two models with 24 ports each, in fiber and copper. The copper models have four Power over Ethernet ports for connections to video cameras, wireless access points and other devices that rely on one cable for both power and signal.

The 6855 shares some characteristics with other members of the OmniSwitch 6850 family, such as wirespeed support for both IPv4 and IPv6, a new security feature that detects anomalies in network traffic in real-time, and low power consumption. The 6850's power consumption is so low, in fact, that Network World recognized its power-saving achievement in a recent test of access switches.

The OmniSwitch 6855 is shipping now for metro and carrier deployments. Prices start at $4,000.

Jeff Caruso is site editor at Network World.