In the online world, Cisco System Inc. is well-known to everyone. With its IOS (Internet Operating System), Cisco is an absolute leader in the multi-protocol router market. Currently, nearly 80% of the Internet routers come from Cisco. In fact, in addition to the router, the main product, Cisco also has a full range of network equipment, including hubs, switches, access servers, soft and hard firewalls, network management software, etc. Cisco pays great attention to tracking new technologies. Through a series of cooperation and mergers, Cisco has successfully intervened in emerging markets such as broadband access and wireless communications.
This article mainly introduces Cisco's switch product line and main products.
1. Overview
Cisco's switch products are trademarked "Catalyst", including more than a dozen series such as 1900, 2800, 2900, 3500, 4000, 5000, 5500, 6000, 8500, etc. In general, these switches can be divided into two categories:
The first category is fixed configuration switches, including most models of 3500 and below. For example, the 1924 is a 24-port 10M Ethernet switch with two 100M uplink ports. These switches cannot be extended except for limited software upgrades;
The other type is modular switch, which mainly refers to models of 4,000 or above. Network designers can choose different numbers and models of interface boards, power modules and corresponding software according to network needs.
Many people have a headache about long product models when choosing a device. In fact, Cisco has certain rules for naming products. As for Catalyst switches, the product naming format is as follows:
Catalyst NN XX [-C] [-M] [-A/-EN]
Among them, NN is the serial number of the switch, XX is the number of ports for fixed configuration switches, and slots for modular switches. The -C flag indicates that it has an optical fiber interface, -M indicates modularity, and -A and -EN means that the switch software is a standard board or enterprise version, respectively.
2. Product introduction
Currently, the common Cisco switches in network integration projects include the following series, 1900/2900 series, 3500 series, and 6500 series. They are used in the low-end, mid-end and high-end respectively. Here are the following products of these series:
1. Low-end products
Let’s talk about low-end products first. 1900 and 2900 are typical of low-end products. In fact, Cisco does not have a special advantage in the low-end switch market, because the products of 3Com, Dlink and other companies have better performance-price ratios.
The 1900 switch is suitable for desktop computer access at the end of the network and is a typical low-end product. It offers 12 or 24 10M ports and 2 100M ports, of which the 100M port supports full duplex communication and can provide port bandwidth up to 200Mbps. The backplane bandwidth of the machine is 320Mbps.
1900 with enterprise version of software also supports VLAN and ISL Trunking, with up to 4 VLANs, but generally, low-end products do not require much of this feature.
Some models of 1900 have 100BaseFX fiber interface. For example, C 1912C and C 1924C have a 100M Tx port and a 100M Fx port, and C 1924F has two 100BaseFX interfaces. The main models of the 1900 series are as follows:
C1912: 12 ports 10BaseTx, 2 ports 100BaseTx, 1 AUI port
C 1912C: 12-port 10BaseTx, 1-port 100BaseTx, 1-AUI-port, 1-100BaseFx-port
C1924: 24 port 10BaseTx, 2 port 100BaseTx, 1 AUI port
C 1924C: 24 port 10BaseTx, 1 port 100BaseTx, 1 AUI port, 1 100BaseFx port
C 1924F: 24 port 10BaseTx, 1 AUI port, 1 100BaseFx port
If some desktop computers on your network are 100M, the 2900 series may be more suitable. Compared with the 1900, the biggest feature of the 2900 is its increased speed. Its backplane speed is up to 3.2G and up to 24 10/100M adaptive ports. All ports support full duplex communication, greatly improving the speed of desktop access. In addition to the port speed, many other performance of the 2900 also improve significantly over the 1900 series. For example, the MAC address table capacity of 2900 is 16K, which can divide 1024 VLANs, supports ISL Trunking protocol, etc.
The 2900 series has a long product line. Among them, some are ordinary 10/100BaseTx switches, such as C2912, C2924, etc.; some are with fiber optic interfaces, such as C 2924C with two 100BaseFx ports; some are modular, such as C 2924M with two expansion slots. The card in the expansion slot can hold 100BaseTx modules, 100baseFx modules, and even ATM modules and Gigabit Ethernet interface cards (GBICs). The details are as follows:
C2912-XL: 12-port 10/100BaseTx adaptive
C2912MF-XL: 2 expansion slots, 12 ports 100BaseFX
C2924-XL: 24-port 10/100BaseTX adaptive
C 2924C -XL: 22-port 10/100BaseTX adaptive, 2-port 100BaseFX
C 2924M -XL: 2 expansion slots, 24 ports 10/100BaseTx adaptive
In the 2900 series, there are two products that are quite unique, one is C 2948G and the other is C 2948G -L3. The 2948G has a good performance-price ratio. It uses the same software as the Catalyst 5000/5500, with 48 10/100Mbps adaptive Ethernet ports and 2 Gigabit Ethernet ports, 24G backplane bandwidth, redundant power supply with hot-swapable redundant power supply, and a series of fault-tolerant and network management features. C 2948G -L3 adds the ability of layer three switching on the basis of C 2948G, with a maximum layer three packet throughput up to 10Mpps. However, in general, the 2900 series switches are generally used at the low end of the network, and the gigabit and routing capabilities are not very important, so the two 2948s are not used much in actual projects.
Let’s look at mid-range products. Among the mid-range products, the 3500 series is widely used and is very representative.
The basic features of the C3500 series switches include the backplane bandwidth up to 10Gbps and the forwarding rate is 7.5Mppps. It supports 250 VLANs, supports IEEE 802.1Q and ISL Trunking, supports CGMP network/gigabit Ethernet switches, optional redundant power supplies, etc. However, the biggest feature of the C3500 is management and gigabit.
In terms of management features, the C3500 implements Cisco's switching cluster technology, which can interconnect 16 C3500, C2900, and C1900 series switches and manage them through one IP address. The Cisco Visual Switch Manager (CVSM) software within the C3500 can also be conveniently set up and managed by the browser.
In terms of gigabit features, the C3500 fully supports gigabit interface cards (GBICs). Currently, there are three types of GBIC 1000BaseSx, suitable for multimode fibers, with a maximum distance of 550m; 1000BaseLX/LH, multimode/single-mode fibers, with a maximum distance of 10km; 1000BaseZX is suitable for singlemode fibers, with a maximum distance of 100km.
There are 4 main models of C3500:
Catalyst 3508G XL: 8-port GBIC slot
Catalyst 3512 XL: 12-port 10/100M adaptive, 2-port GBIC slot
Catalyst 3524 XL: 24-port 10/100M adaptive, 2-port GBIC slot
Catalyst 3548 XL: 48 port 10/100M adaptive, 2 port GBIC slot
3. High-end products
Finally, let’s introduce high-end products. For enterprise data networks, the C6000 series replaces the original C5000 series and is the most commonly used product.
The Catalyst 6000 series switches provide high-performance, multi-layer switching solutions for the campus network, and are designed specifically for application environments that require gigabit expansion, high availability, and multi-layer switching. They are mainly aimed at park backbone connections and other occasions.
The Catalyst 6000 series consists of two types of switching mechanisms, Catalyst 6000 and Catalyst 6500. Both contain 6 or 9 slot models, namely 6006, 6009, 6506 and 6509, among which 6509 is the most widely used. All models support the same super engine and the same interface module, protecting users' investment. This series of features mainly include:
High port density. Supports up to 384 10/100BaseTx adaptive Ethernet ports, 192 100BaseFX fiber fast Ethernet ports, and 130 Gigabit Ethernet ports (GBIC slots).
Fast speed. The C6500's switching backplane can be expanded to 256 Gbps and multi-layer switching speeds can be expanded to 150 Mpps. The switching backplane bandwidth of the C6000 is 32 Gbps and the multi-layer switching rate is 30 Mpps. Supports up to 8 fast/gigabit Ethernet ports that use Ethernet channel technology (Fast EtherChannel, FEC or Gigabit EtherChannel, GEC) connections, logically implements a port rate of 16 Gbps, and can also be implemented across modules for port aggregation.
Multi-layer exchange. The C6000 series multi-layer switching modules can perform line-speed IP, IPX and and IP-multicast routing.
Good fault tolerance performance. The C6000 series has a redundant super engine, a redundant load balancing power supply, a redundant fan, a redundant system clock, a redundant upper connection, and a redundant switching backplane (for the C6500 series only), achieving high system availability.
Rich software features. The C6000 software supports a wealth of protocols, including NetFlow, VTP (VLAN Trunking Protocol), VQP (VLAN Query Protocol), ISL Trunking, HSRP (Hot Standby Router Protocol), Port Security, TACACS, CGMP (Cisco Group Management Protocol), IGMP, etc.
This article mainly introduces Cisco's switch product line and main products.
1. Overview
Cisco's switch products are trademarked "Catalyst", including more than a dozen series such as 1900, 2800, 2900, 3500, 4000, 5000, 5500, 6000, 8500, etc. In general, these switches can be divided into two categories:
The first category is fixed configuration switches, including most models of 3500 and below. For example, the 1924 is a 24-port 10M Ethernet switch with two 100M uplink ports. These switches cannot be extended except for limited software upgrades;
The other type is modular switch, which mainly refers to models of 4,000 or above. Network designers can choose different numbers and models of interface boards, power modules and corresponding software according to network needs.
Many people have a headache about long product models when choosing a device. In fact, Cisco has certain rules for naming products. As for Catalyst switches, the product naming format is as follows:
Catalyst NN XX [-C] [-M] [-A/-EN]
Among them, NN is the serial number of the switch, XX is the number of ports for fixed configuration switches, and slots for modular switches. The -C flag indicates that it has an optical fiber interface, -M indicates modularity, and -A and -EN means that the switch software is a standard board or enterprise version, respectively.
2. Product introduction
Currently, the common Cisco switches in network integration projects include the following series, 1900/2900 series, 3500 series, and 6500 series. They are used in the low-end, mid-end and high-end respectively. Here are the following products of these series:
1. Low-end products
Let’s talk about low-end products first. 1900 and 2900 are typical of low-end products. In fact, Cisco does not have a special advantage in the low-end switch market, because the products of 3Com, Dlink and other companies have better performance-price ratios.
The 1900 switch is suitable for desktop computer access at the end of the network and is a typical low-end product. It offers 12 or 24 10M ports and 2 100M ports, of which the 100M port supports full duplex communication and can provide port bandwidth up to 200Mbps. The backplane bandwidth of the machine is 320Mbps.
1900 with enterprise version of software also supports VLAN and ISL Trunking, with up to 4 VLANs, but generally, low-end products do not require much of this feature.
Some models of 1900 have 100BaseFX fiber interface. For example, C 1912C and C 1924C have a 100M Tx port and a 100M Fx port, and C 1924F has two 100BaseFX interfaces. The main models of the 1900 series are as follows:
C1912: 12 ports 10BaseTx, 2 ports 100BaseTx, 1 AUI port
C 1912C: 12-port 10BaseTx, 1-port 100BaseTx, 1-AUI-port, 1-100BaseFx-port
C1924: 24 port 10BaseTx, 2 port 100BaseTx, 1 AUI port
C 1924C: 24 port 10BaseTx, 1 port 100BaseTx, 1 AUI port, 1 100BaseFx port
C 1924F: 24 port 10BaseTx, 1 AUI port, 1 100BaseFx port
If some desktop computers on your network are 100M, the 2900 series may be more suitable. Compared with the 1900, the biggest feature of the 2900 is its increased speed. Its backplane speed is up to 3.2G and up to 24 10/100M adaptive ports. All ports support full duplex communication, greatly improving the speed of desktop access. In addition to the port speed, many other performance of the 2900 also improve significantly over the 1900 series. For example, the MAC address table capacity of 2900 is 16K, which can divide 1024 VLANs, supports ISL Trunking protocol, etc.
The 2900 series has a long product line. Among them, some are ordinary 10/100BaseTx switches, such as C2912, C2924, etc.; some are with fiber optic interfaces, such as C 2924C with two 100BaseFx ports; some are modular, such as C 2924M with two expansion slots. The card in the expansion slot can hold 100BaseTx modules, 100baseFx modules, and even ATM modules and Gigabit Ethernet interface cards (GBICs). The details are as follows:
C2912-XL: 12-port 10/100BaseTx adaptive
C2912MF-XL: 2 expansion slots, 12 ports 100BaseFX
C2924-XL: 24-port 10/100BaseTX adaptive
C 2924C -XL: 22-port 10/100BaseTX adaptive, 2-port 100BaseFX
C 2924M -XL: 2 expansion slots, 24 ports 10/100BaseTx adaptive
In the 2900 series, there are two products that are quite unique, one is C 2948G and the other is C 2948G -L3. The 2948G has a good performance-price ratio. It uses the same software as the Catalyst 5000/5500, with 48 10/100Mbps adaptive Ethernet ports and 2 Gigabit Ethernet ports, 24G backplane bandwidth, redundant power supply with hot-swapable redundant power supply, and a series of fault-tolerant and network management features. C 2948G -L3 adds the ability of layer three switching on the basis of C 2948G, with a maximum layer three packet throughput up to 10Mpps. However, in general, the 2900 series switches are generally used at the low end of the network, and the gigabit and routing capabilities are not very important, so the two 2948s are not used much in actual projects.
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Article entry: csh Editor in charge: csh2. Mid-range products
Let’s look at mid-range products. Among the mid-range products, the 3500 series is widely used and is very representative.
The basic features of the C3500 series switches include the backplane bandwidth up to 10Gbps and the forwarding rate is 7.5Mppps. It supports 250 VLANs, supports IEEE 802.1Q and ISL Trunking, supports CGMP network/gigabit Ethernet switches, optional redundant power supplies, etc. However, the biggest feature of the C3500 is management and gigabit.
In terms of management features, the C3500 implements Cisco's switching cluster technology, which can interconnect 16 C3500, C2900, and C1900 series switches and manage them through one IP address. The Cisco Visual Switch Manager (CVSM) software within the C3500 can also be conveniently set up and managed by the browser.
In terms of gigabit features, the C3500 fully supports gigabit interface cards (GBICs). Currently, there are three types of GBIC 1000BaseSx, suitable for multimode fibers, with a maximum distance of 550m; 1000BaseLX/LH, multimode/single-mode fibers, with a maximum distance of 10km; 1000BaseZX is suitable for singlemode fibers, with a maximum distance of 100km.
There are 4 main models of C3500:
Catalyst 3508G XL: 8-port GBIC slot
Catalyst 3512 XL: 12-port 10/100M adaptive, 2-port GBIC slot
Catalyst 3524 XL: 24-port 10/100M adaptive, 2-port GBIC slot
Catalyst 3548 XL: 48 port 10/100M adaptive, 2 port GBIC slot
3. High-end products
Finally, let’s introduce high-end products. For enterprise data networks, the C6000 series replaces the original C5000 series and is the most commonly used product.
The Catalyst 6000 series switches provide high-performance, multi-layer switching solutions for the campus network, and are designed specifically for application environments that require gigabit expansion, high availability, and multi-layer switching. They are mainly aimed at park backbone connections and other occasions.
The Catalyst 6000 series consists of two types of switching mechanisms, Catalyst 6000 and Catalyst 6500. Both contain 6 or 9 slot models, namely 6006, 6009, 6506 and 6509, among which 6509 is the most widely used. All models support the same super engine and the same interface module, protecting users' investment. This series of features mainly include:
High port density. Supports up to 384 10/100BaseTx adaptive Ethernet ports, 192 100BaseFX fiber fast Ethernet ports, and 130 Gigabit Ethernet ports (GBIC slots).
Fast speed. The C6500's switching backplane can be expanded to 256 Gbps and multi-layer switching speeds can be expanded to 150 Mpps. The switching backplane bandwidth of the C6000 is 32 Gbps and the multi-layer switching rate is 30 Mpps. Supports up to 8 fast/gigabit Ethernet ports that use Ethernet channel technology (Fast EtherChannel, FEC or Gigabit EtherChannel, GEC) connections, logically implements a port rate of 16 Gbps, and can also be implemented across modules for port aggregation.
Multi-layer exchange. The C6000 series multi-layer switching modules can perform line-speed IP, IPX and and IP-multicast routing.
Good fault tolerance performance. The C6000 series has a redundant super engine, a redundant load balancing power supply, a redundant fan, a redundant system clock, a redundant upper connection, and a redundant switching backplane (for the C6500 series only), achieving high system availability.
Rich software features. The C6000 software supports a wealth of protocols, including NetFlow, VTP (VLAN Trunking Protocol), VQP (VLAN Query Protocol), ISL Trunking, HSRP (Hot Standby Router Protocol), Port Security, TACACS, CGMP (Cisco Group Management Protocol), IGMP, etc.
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Article entry: csh Editor in charge: csh