Which Allen-Bradley Stratix switch you actually need, and what breaks when you swap a 5700

Somebody hands me a Stratix switch pulled off a line that's getting scrapped and asks if it'll just work as a replacement. Depends which one you're actually holding, is the honest answer, more often than people expect. Two Stratix switches can sit side by side on a shelf, look identical, and behave completely differently once you power them up, because the difference lives in a suffix at the end of the catalog number, not in anything visible on the front panel.

That suffix decides whether the switch does Device Level Ring. Whether it does port security at all. Whether it routes. Whether it takes Power over Ethernet. Get it wrong and you've either bought a switch that can't do the one thing your panel actually needs, or paid for features a straight replacement never needed.

Below is the family in order, exactly what changed when Rockwell discontinued the 5700, and the specific things that break if you assume a 5200 does everything a 5700 Full did.

The short answer: the suffix does almost all the deciding

Take two 5700 switches with the same port count. One is a Lite unit, the other Full. The Lite one has no port security, no access control lists, no 802.1X, no Layer 3 routing of any kind, no Layer 2 NAT, no CIP Sync, and can't do FlexLinks or EtherChannel. Everything past basic VLANs, Spanning Tree, and IGMP snooping is simply missing. That's not a stripped-back budget option in the marketing sense. It's a genuinely different device wearing the same 1783-BMS jacket, and the only place that's documented is Rockwell's own migration reference, publication 1783-RM001.

The split shows up right in the catalog number. 1783-BMSxxxL is Lite. 1783-BMSxxxA, or anything ending in a P, PK, N, or NK suffix, is Full. The newer 5200 line runs the same logic with three tiers instead of two: Base (1783-CMS6B, CMS10B, CMS20DB), Full (CMS6P, CMS10P, CMS10DP, CMS20DP), and Advanced (CMS10DN, CMS20DN). Base gets you managed switching and not much else. Advanced is the only 5200 tier that does Layer 2 NAT, CIP Sync, or Parallel Redundancy Protocol.

None of this shows up if you just search the family name. Pull the exact catalog number and check it against the feature list every time, even for a switch you're buying as a straight swap for one that already failed.

The family, in order

Rockwell's Stratix line runs from plain unmanaged switches up through a modular chassis platform, and the naming doesn't sort itself by capability the way you'd guess from the numbers alone.

At the bottom, the Stratix 2000 (1783-US) is unmanaged. Plug and play, no Device Manager, no DLR, nothing to configure. Fine for a machine that just needs ports. One step up, the Stratix 2500 (1783-LMS) is what Rockwell calls "lightly managed," basic VLANs and some diagnostics without the cost or complexity of a fully managed switch.

Then the two lines this article mostly cares about: Stratix 5700 (1783-BMS), and its recommended replacement, either Stratix 5200 (1783-CMS) or Stratix 5800 (1783-MMS), depending on what the application actually needs. Parallel to the 5700 sits the Stratix 5400 (1783-HMS), a higher port count Layer 2 or Layer 3 switch that was discontinued the same way and points at the same 5200/5800 pair. The Stratix 5410 (1783-IMS) is a separate, larger chassis built for high port counts and PRP redundancy, and it's one of the few Classic IOS platforms Rockwell is, as of this writing, still actively selling.

Above all of them sits the Stratix 8000 and 8300 (1783-MS, 1783-RMS, 1783-MX), a modular platform built on Cisco Catalyst hardware that predates the 5800 and maps onto it module for module, according to the migration reference Rockwell publishes for that specific transition. Off to the side, the Stratix 6000 (1783-EMS) is a smaller entry-level managed switch, a simpler scope than the 5200 or 5400 lines.

Series	Catalog prefix	Managed level	Where it stands
2000	1783-US	Unmanaged	Entry level, still sold
2500	1783-LMS	Lightly managed	Basic VLANs and diagnostics, still sold
5700	1783-BMS	Lite or Full	Discontinued September 1, 2024
5400	1783-HMS	Layer 2 or Layer 3	Discontinued, same date
5200	1783-CMS	Base, Full, or Advanced	Current 5700/5400 replacement
5800	1783-MMS	Modular, L2 or L3	Current replacement when L3 ports, more PoE, or more DLR rings are needed
5410	1783-IMS	Managed, high port count	Still sold; PRP-focused
8000 / 8300	1783-MS / RMS / MX	Modular, Cisco Catalyst based	Predates the 5800; migration path published
6000	1783-EMS	Entry-level managed	Smaller scope than 5200/5400

The 5700 is gone. Here's exactly when, and what that actually means

September 1, 2024. That's the discontinued date Rockwell lists against every 5700 catalog number I've run through its product lifecycle records, whether it's a six-port unit or a twenty-port one, each pointing at a specific named replacement: a 1783-BMS10CGA maps to a 1783-CMS10P, a 1783-BMS20CGP maps to a 1783-CMS20DP, a 1783-BMS06TA maps to a 1783-CMS6P. The 5400 carries the same discontinued status and the same date.

A few things survive that date, and they're worth knowing before "discontinued" gets read as "abandoned." Rockwell still honors hardware warranty claims on a 5700 after the discontinuation date. Technical support on it typically runs another five to seven years past end-of-life, going by Rockwell's own lifecycle policy. Pull up the specific catalog number on Rockwell's Product Compatibility and Download Center (PCDC) if you need the current word on it. Software updates and security patches follow a different clock. They keep coming as long as Rockwell is still selling other switches on the same Classic IOS platform, and as of this writing that still includes the 5410. That's good for a few more years of patches, but it's a moving target. The 5410's status is the thing to recheck on PCDC before you plan around it.

None of that changes the buying reality. You cannot order a new 1783-BMS switch from Rockwell anymore. Every one on the market is either coming out of a panel that's being scrapped or sitting in surplus inventory somewhere, which is exactly why the catalog number and its lifecycle status matter more on this platform than on almost anything else Rockwell still sells new.

I've watched people quote a job assuming the whole family is dead, when the one part number that mattered was still years from end of life, or the other way around. Check the actual number. It takes five minutes on Rockwell's lifecycle status tool.

What actually changes when you move up from a 5700 Full

Assume nothing carries over automatically, even from a Full 5700 to the platform Rockwell itself recommends as the replacement. A handful of things quietly disappear or change shape.

Routed ports and Layer 3 EtherChannels are gone. A 5700 Full could be set up with actual routed physical ports and Layer 3 EtherChannels. The Stratix 5200, in any tier, cannot do either. Rockwell's migration guide states it plainly: that functionality was on the 5700 Full versions, and if routed ports or Layer 3 EtherChannels are required now, the answer is a Stratix 5800, not a 5200. Connected routing between VLANs and static routes still work fine on a 5200. Actual routed physical ports don't.

Power over Ethernet disappears entirely on the 5200. Every tier, Base through Advanced, has zero PoE ports. If a 5700 was feeding a wireless access point or a camera off the switch itself, a 5200 will not do that job under any catalog number. That capability only survives on the Stratix 5800 side, where select models carry up to eight PoE ports on the base unit and up to sixteen more through an expansion module.

FlexLinks is gone, on 5200 and 5800 both. If a 5700 Full panel used FlexLinks to fail over between two uplinks, that configuration has nowhere to go on the newer hardware. Rockwell's own guidance is to rebuild it as an EtherChannel if both links land on a switch that supports one, or fall back to Spanning Tree blocking one of the paths if the uplinks go to two separate upstream switches.

The default Spanning Tree mode changes out from under you. A legacy 5700 or 5400 defaults to Multiple Spanning Tree. Run Express Setup on a new 5200 or 5800 and it comes up in Rapid PVST+ instead. Drop that switch into a ring or a redundant uplink pair still running the old mode, and the two ends of the network are speaking different flavors of Spanning Tree until somebody notices.

One more that catches people during commissioning, not after: the WebUI on a 5200 or 5800 does not save changes automatically. On a legacy 5700, Device Manager writes to the startup configuration the moment you click Submit. On the newer platform, changes only apply to the running configuration until you explicitly hit Save Configuration. Power-cycle the switch before that click and everything just set is gone.

Stratix 5800 (1783-MMS10EA) with a 1783-MMX8T expansion module: where the 5200 runs out of PoE and Layer 3 ports.

Device Level Ring: why "just get a 5700" is not enough

Not every Stratix 5700 does Device Level Ring, and that catches people harder than almost anything else on this platform. Buy a six-port Lite unit expecting a ring and you'll be staring at a Device Manager screen with no DLR option anywhere on it, wondering if the firmware's broken.

On the Lite side, DLR exists on exactly three catalog numbers: 1783-BMS12T4E2CGL, 1783-BMS20CL, and 1783-BMS20CGL. On the Full side, it's the P, PK, N, and NK suffix units, plus the 1783-BMS20CA specifically. Every other 5700 catalog number, Lite or Full, simply does not have the option, and that's straight from publication 1783-RM001, not a guess based on the port count.

Even on a switch that supports it, the ports have to be the right pair. DLR runs on any adjacent port pair, numbered N and N plus 1, where N is odd. Ports one and two work. Three and four work. Two and three do not, and neither does any other combination, no matter how the panel got wired.

The ring also wants one consistent speed and duplex setting all the way around it. Leave ports on auto-negotiate and mix in a switch that landed on a different speed or duplex than its neighbors, and the ring works fine for weeks before it starts dropping out for no visible reason, with port counters showing errors that don't point at anything obvious. I set every port in a ring by hand now rather than trust auto-negotiate to land everyone on the same setting, and it's saved me a callback more than once.

Moving up doesn't simplify this, it just changes the numbers. A Stratix 5200 supports one or two rings depending on the SKU, again split by tier. A Stratix 5800 goes to two or three rings depending on the model. Every DLR role carries forward on both platforms: supervisor, redundant gateway, and DLR DHCP server.

Platform / tier	Rings	Which catalog numbers
5700 Lite	1	1783-BMS12T4E2CGL, BMS20CL, BMS20CGL only
5700 Full	1	P, PK, N, NK suffixes, plus 1783-BMS20CA
5200 Base	1	1783-CMS20DB only
5200 Full	1	1783-CMS10DP, CMS20DP
5200 Advanced	2	1783-CMS10DN, CMS20DN
5800	2 or 3	Model dependent
5400 (all tiers, for reference)	3	All 1783-HMS catalog numbers

A Stratix 5700's port face: DLR pairs are always adjacent and start on an odd number, like 1-2 or 3-4.

The tap and the NAT router: 1783-ETAP and 1783-NATR

Two small devices in this family aren't switches at all, and both solve a specific wiring problem instead of a general one.

The 1783-ETAP is an embedded switch tap. Its whole job is letting a single device get pulled off a Device Level Ring without adding a full switch to do it. Rockwell sells it in three physical variants, and the difference is only the ports on the bottom of the unit: the plain 1783-ETAP has two copper ports, the 1783-ETAP1F has one fiber and one copper, and the 1783-ETAP2F has two fiber ports. Nothing about the internal function changes between them.

Reset one to factory defaults and its IP address goes back to 169.254.1.1. Turn the unit off, set DIP switches 1 and 2 to the ON position, power it back up, and wait for the OK LED to flash red. Move the switches back to whatever position is actually wanted, cycle power once more, and it comes up clean.

The 1783-NATR does something different. It's a configurable NAT router, and it exists for the case where a machine or a whole cell was built with its own private IP scheme and now needs to talk to the wider plant network without renumbering every device inside it. Instead of touching addresses on forty devices in a skid, the NATR sits at the boundary and translates addresses in both directions as traffic crosses it.

Neither of these is a general-purpose switch, and neither shows up as an option when a panel is being specced from scratch. They show up when an existing machine already has a topology built around one, and the replacement has to match the exact variant, ETAP versus ETAP1F versus ETAP2F, or the fiber runs already in the panel won't land anywhere.

The Allen-Bradley 1783-ETAP1F: pulling one device off a ring without adding a full switch.

Powering up a used switch for the first time

A surplus 5700 almost never arrives configured the way it's needed, and the first ten minutes with it on the bench look the same whether it came off a scrapped line or out of a box that's been sitting on a shelf for six years.

Hold the Express Setup button for about one to four seconds right after the switch finishes booting, and the Setup LED starts blinking green. Connect a PC to whichever port lights up, with the network adapter set to obtain an IP address automatically rather than a static one, and the switch answers at 169.254.0.1. There's no default username, leave that field blank, and the default password is switch.

If the switch came off another machine and needs to be wiped clean rather than just walked through setup, that's a different button press. Hold Express Setup for around ten seconds instead of a few, until the Setup LED flashes, and the unit resets fully to its factory state, including whatever the previous owner had configured.

Buying new instead and starting from a 5200 or 5800 changes both numbers. Express Setup on that platform defaults to 192.168.1.254, with admin as the username and switch as the password again, same word, completely different address to look for.

One more that generates more panic than it deserves: the EIP Mod indicator blinking red on a switch that was just unboxed or just swapped in. Before assuming a bad unit, check whether port thresholds were ever configured on it, through Device Manager or through the Logix Designer application. Send more traffic through a port than the threshold allows and the EIP Mod status blinks red to flag a minor alarm. That's expected behavior, not a fault. The part that trips people up is that the indicator won't clear itself even after the traffic settles down or the threshold gets disabled. The switch needs a restart to reset it, full stop.

A Stratix 5700 wired and powered up in the panel, link light confirming the connection is live.

Before you pull the old switch

Whatever's about to get replaced, pull its configuration out of it before it comes off the panel. A working list, trimmed down to what actually matters rather than every field on the manufacturer's configuration worksheet:

·       Host name, management VLAN, and the IP address, mask, and default gateway

·       Every VLAN ID and name in use, and which ports are assigned where

·       Port settings that aren't defaults: fixed speed/duplex, trunk versus access mode, allowed VLAN lists

·       Any EtherChannel groups and which physical ports feed them

·       Spanning Tree mode, MST or Rapid PVST+, and any non-default priorities

·       REP segment ID and port roles, if the ring runs Resilient Ethernet Protocol instead of or alongside DLR

·       DLR mode, ports, and supervisor precedence, if it's running a Device Level Ring

·       Any NAT translations, ACLs, or port security settings

·       DHCP pools and reservations, if the switch hands out addresses itself

If the replacement is a same-generation unit rather than a jump to the newer platform, an SD card holds a synced copy of both configuration and software, and a fresh factory-default switch of the same family pulls from that card automatically on boot. That swap-drive path only works within one platform generation, though. A card synced from a 5700 will not restore anything onto a 5200 or 5800.

Rockwell's own Stratix Migration Assistant, reached through FactoryTalk Vault, converts a 5700 or 5400 configuration file toward the newer platform automatically, but it deliberately does not carry over credentials. CIP passwords, CLI passwords, WebUI logins, none of it survives the conversion, by design. Plan on setting all of that fresh on the new switch regardless of which path gets used.

Two more things worth checking before ordering anything. Power terminal block type and cable orientation stay the same going from a 5700 to a 5200, but change if the jump is straight to a 5800. And QoS settings never convert between the platforms at all, the underlying technology changed too much between Classic IOS and IOS-XE, so run Express Setup on the new switch first and let it apply its own default QoS profile before loading anything else onto it.

Frequently asked questions

What's the difference between a Stratix 5700 Lite and a Full switch?

Lite drops nearly everything past basic VLANs, Spanning Tree, and IGMP snooping: no port security, no ACLs, no 802.1X, no routing, no Layer 2 NAT, no CIP Sync, no FlexLinks, no EtherChannel. Full carries all of that, plus Device Level Ring on specific catalog numbers within each tier.

Is the Stratix 5700 still available new?

No. Rockwell discontinued it, along with the Stratix 5400, effective September 1, 2024, with the 5200 or 5800 as the recommended replacement depending on which features the application needs. Hardware warranty claims are still honored, and software patches are expected to continue as long as other Classic IOS platforms, including the 5410, stay in production.

What's the default IP address for a Stratix 5700 in Express Setup?

169.254.0.1, reached by holding the Express Setup button for one to four seconds after boot and connecting a PC set to obtain its IP address automatically. The default username is blank and the password is switch. A new Stratix 5200 or 5800 defaults to 192.168.1.254 instead, with admin as the username.

Does every Stratix 5700 support Device Level Ring?

No. On the Lite tier, only the 1783-BMS12T4E2CGL, 1783-BMS20CL, and 1783-BMS20CGL support it. On the Full tier, it's limited to the P, PK, N, and NK suffix models, plus the 1783-BMS20CA. Every other 5700 catalog number, in either tier, does not support DLR.

What's the difference between the 1783-ETAP, 1783-ETAP1F, and 1783-ETAP2F?

Just the ports on the bottom: two copper on the base ETAP, a fiber-copper mix on the 1F, and dual fiber on the 2F. All three do the same job, tapping one device off a ring.

In stock, tested, and backed by a 2-year warranty

We keep the Stratix line in stock at IQElectro across every tier that still turns up in real panels: 5700 in both Lite and Full, 5200, 5800, 5400 and 5410, the 8000 and 8300 modular chassis, 6000, and the smaller 2000 and 2500 switches, along with 1783-ETAP taps and 1783-NATR routers. Everything ships tested with a two-year warranty. Send over the exact catalog number off the unit being replaced and we'll confirm what's on the shelf before anything gets ordered.