Switching course extra

topics
 Cisco Switches Models
 We can divide Cisco switches into two main categories
based on H/W as follows:
◦ Modular Switches:
 Catalyst 6500 Series.
 Catalyst 4500 Series.
 Nexus 7000 Series.
◦ Fixed Configuration Switches:
 Cisco Catalyst 4500-X Series
 Cisco Catalyst 3750-X Series
 Cisco Catalyst 3750-E Series
 Many other series you can find it here.

Switching Course Extra Topics

 Cisco Switches Models
 Now the question is how could you choose the
appropriate switch for your LAN which fits your network
with minimum cost?
◦ “Cisco Catalyst Switch Solution Finder” helps you to find what you
need.
◦ Also you can use “Cisco Feature Navigation” to select precisely the
IOS which support features you need.
◦ Also you can find all Cisco switches guide here.

Switching Course Extra Topics

Cisco Catalyst Switches
 Cisco Catalyst Switches

◦ We will talk here about 4 series of Cisco Catalyst switches and

navigate some of its new H/W and S/W features:
 Cisco Catalyst 3750 stackable switches.
 Cisco Catalyst 4500-E switches.
 Cisco Catalyst 6500 Switches.
 Cisco Catalyst 6800 Switches.

Switching Course Extra Topics

 Cisco Catalyst Switches “3750 switches”
 Cisco Catalyst 3750 series is a
small to medium size switches.
 Cat 3750 V2 switches is using
Cisco EnergyWise technology
which save more power and
therefore reduce energy.
 The most interesting feature of
3750 series is the Cisco
StackWise feature and Cisco
StackPower technology.
Cat 3750 family
 Cisco Catalyst Switches “3750 switches”
 LAB 1 StackWise & StackPower Technology
◦ Let’s have here a small lab introducing the Cisco StackWise
technology on Cisco 3750X and Cisco 2960S switches.
◦ There are many helpful youtube videos to understand Cisco
StackWise tech. and Cisco StackPower tech.
◦ Refer to this web page to know the difference between StackWise
and StackWisePlus.
◦ Cisco 2960-S switches is using sub-technology from
StackWisePlus called Cisco FlexStack , to know more about it and
the difference between then, refer to this page.

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Cisco Catalyst Switches “4500 switches”

4500-X series 4500-E series

Cisco Catalyst Switches “4500 switches”
 The 4500-X is a fixed configuration switch.
◦ It is the bigger brother of 3750-X series as it is supports more
features like VSS with forwarding speed of 1.6Tbps and with high
performance of H/W based features.
◦ Although it is a fixed configuration which means that its ports are
fixed but it has a small module can be changed which supports the
10G interfaces.

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Cisco Catalyst Switches “4500 switches”
 The 4500-E switch is a modular switch:
◦ It supports up to 928Gbps switching capacity with the 8-E
supervisor.
◦ It is supports Cisco VSS technology for speed up to 1.8Tbps.
◦ This switch is consists of many components:
 Chassis
 Dual Power Supply “use Cisco power calculator to know how much power
do you need.
 Fan Tray
 Supervisor
 Line Cards

Switching Course Extra Topics

Cisco Catalyst Switches “6500 switches”
 One of the most powerful Cisco LAN switches:
◦ The most useful investment for the customers in LAN switching as
Cisco claims that it may be useable till 2025 as per this report.
◦ Physical H/W separation between Data Plane and Control Plane.
◦ It can forward up to 2Tbps frames with the new Supervisor 2T.
◦ Forwarding speed can be increased to be 4Tbps using Cisco VSS
and it may be much larger in VSS Phase II.

Switching Course Extra Topics

Cisco Cat 6500 Switch IOS
 Cisco 6500 switch was working using Cisco Cat-OS which
was old OS used in Cat 6000 series.
 Cat 6500 now is working using Cisco IOS which all Cisco
engineers are familiar with.
 It configuration is typically as all other Cisco Catalyst
switches with some new features.
 It was working on IOS 12.2 but now it supports IOS 15.0
which add many new features to it as VSS.

Switching Course Extra Topics

Cisco Cat 6500 Switch Models
 It has many models:
◦ 6503-E
◦ 6504-E
◦ 6506-E
◦ 6509-E
◦ 6509-V-E
◦ 6513-E
 It naming as 65xx where xx is the number of slots.
 6509-V-E is a version of 6509-E but using vertical line cards and its
air flow from front to back for customers who has a problem in right
to left air flow in all other models.

Switching Course Extra Topics

Cisco Cat 6500 Switch component
 It consists of many components:
◦ Chassis
◦ One of two power supply
◦ Fan Tray
◦ Supervisor
◦ Line cards
◦ Service Modules

Switching Course Extra Topics

Cisco Cat 6500 Switch component
 Chassis: it has multiple chassis depending on the
customer requirement.
 Power supply: it can contain one or two power supplies in
redundant mode or power-share mode.
 Fan tray: is the fans card for each model, a single fan
can’t be changed the full tray should be changed.
 Line cards: many types of Line cards are supported
covering all customer requirements.

Switching Course Extra Topics

Cisco Cat 6500 Switch component
 Service Modules:
◦ cards can be installed on 6500 switch to support certain functions.
◦ It provide very high capability and functionality due to its
application dedicated H/W.
◦ There are many modules for different security features, network
analysis and wireless services.
◦ Here you can find all types of supported service modules.

Switching Course Extra Topics

Cisco Cat 6500 Switch component
 Supervisor:
◦ It is the main component of modular switches.
◦ It is the processing card of the switch which play the control plane
role and controls the forwarding plan.
◦ There are many types of supervisors depending on its speed.
◦ The latest one is the SUP-2T which supports 2Tbps forwarding
speed in full-duplex mode.
◦ All 6500 switch models support up two SUP-2T

Switching Course Extra Topics

Cisco Cat 6500 Switch SUP-2T
 SUP-2T supports many new features:
◦ VSS support up to 4Tbps forwarding speed.
◦ A configurable Out Of Band Configuration management port (CMP)
for remote access the switch in case of supervisor Route Processor
failure.
◦ It contains daughter card called MSFCv5 which is responsible of
control plane processing for the whole switch.
◦ It also contains another daughter card called PFC4 which is
responsible for all forwarding plane and other features line L2
rewrite and ACL apply.
◦ It support Line cards with DFC4 for maximum forwarding speed.

Switching Course Extra Topics

Cisco Nexus Switches
 Cisco Nexus switches
 Data centers was supported by Cisco 6500 switches.
 Cisco Nexus switches is a new series of switches that
made specially for Data Centers.
 It provides many features that are very useful for Data
Centers and port density and forwarding speed that are
suitable for large data centers.
 It has many models that fits all data centers sizes.

Switching Course Extra Topics

 Cisco Nexus switches

Switching Course Extra Topics

 Cisco Nexus switches IOS
 Cisco Nexus switches use the Cisco NX-OS which much
like the normal IOS but with some differences that
accommodates with data centers nature.

Switching Course Extra Topics