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Cisco is a leading provider switching equipment in the US marketplace and provides high quality equipment, software, and training in support of its applications. The Cisco Catalyst line of network switching equipment is targeted at the business environment, from the small network to the enterprise network, from the Cisco Catalyst 2950 to the Catalyst 8000 class.
Cisco Catalyst Switching Lineup. Cisco has several classes of switching equipment designed for specific applications, and each class of equipment overlaps on the low and high end of each application it was designed for. Considering choices, users should opt for a switch that was designed for capacity and capabilities needed for at least two years in advance.
Switches differ from routers in that their primary function is simply switching traffic from multiple devices, not making routing decisions or buffering traffic for QoS (Quality of Service) reasons. You can equate a network switch to a highway interchange, and a router to a traffic signal. No "decisions" are made by an interchange (or a switch), nor are there any controls placed on traffic other than the bandwidth limitations of the network (or traffic lanes).
Starting from the remote office, the following represents Cisco's Catalyst equipment series:
- For ATM services: Cisco provides switches known as the Catalyst 8500 series or Lightstream switch.
- For WAN services: the Catalyst 8600, Catalyst 6500, Catalyst 4500, MGX 8000, and MDS 9200 series provide a range of choices for even the most sophisticated network applications.
- Catalyst 3750: Cisco's 3750 is designed for midsize locations and branch offices and is utilizing stacking technology for ease of installation. Further, by using Cisco's StackWise technology, customers can build a 32 Gbs switching unit with up to nine 3750's with up to nine Catalyst 3750 series switches.
- Catalyst 4500: Cisco's 4500 series is designed for LAN access, branch offices, and small to medium-sized businesses and includes PoE (Power over Ethernet) support, Supervisor Engine, and two models with built-in Supervisor engine redundancy.
- Catalyst 6500: Cisco's 6500 Catalyst includes a high-density 4xport for larger installations, 10/100/1000 Ethernet module for access and data center. It also has 24 and 48 port gig-E module for data center installations
- MGX series: Cisco's MGX series is primarily designed for the carrier infrastructure marketplace. For instance, the MGX 8900 scales multi-service networks to OC-192 and supports ATM and MPLS as well. Since carriers continue to migrate their internal transport networks from TDM/ATM backbones to route IP backbone technologies, this series of equipment may be Cisco's largest source of business very soon.
- MDS 9216: The latest entry in the switching lineup includes the 9216-fabric switch and the MDS 9000 Multiprotocol Services Module, equipped with 14 Fibre Channel ports. This configuration can support traffic speeds of 2 gigabits per second.
Within each series of equipment, model numbers will vary depending upon the specific interfaces on the product, applications supported, mounting options, built-in options, or network modules. Think of a Cisco equipment series as buying a new car. The main "box" is the same, but there are option packages that can be tailored to the user's specific needs. Cisco's equipment line integrates a full array of options in traffic management, capacity scalability, built-in or centralized security management, WAN interface options, application support, security, and application management.
Major Catalyst switch features explained:
- High Speed support: The Catalyst line supports Fast EtherChannel and Gig-E resulting in up to 4Gbps of bandwidth between switches, routers, and servers.
- QoS: The Catalyst line supports two modes of traffic reclassification: 1) Based upon IEEE 802.1p standard honors the class-of-service value at the ingress point and moves traffic to the appropriate queue. 2) Packets can be reclassified based upon values assigned by a network administrator. Once incoming packets are tagged, outbound egress is controlled by 4 additional queues, allowing traffic shaping to be fine-tuned.
- Cluster Management: The Catalyst line supports Cisco Cluster Management Suite, providing a web interface to manage up to 16 interconnected Catalyst switches at once regardless of their location.
More information for Catalysts by Cisco can be found at Cisco.com.
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