To make you more familiar with the concepts of network switching and to get acquainted with the reputable vendors of network switches, we have prepared a number of blogs as a series, the different parts of which are as follows:

In this series of blogs you will come across a variety of terms, abbreviations, concepts, and technologies. We have tried to explain the general concepts and terms as much as possible in the first three parts of this series. In the following sections, we assume that you have read these two sections and therefore we will not re-explain these concepts and terms in the following sections. Of course, each vendor also has a number of specific terms and concepts that are explained in blogs related to the same vendor’s products.

Last note, all the content as well as the images used in this series of blogs are taken from the official websites of the reviewed vendors (Cisco, Microtik, HP and Dell).


 

 

Part 5: Cisco Switches: Campus LAN Switches (Terms, Core and Distribution), and Data Center Switches

 

ITperfection,cisco, switches, Campus LAN Switches – Compact switches

These switches are small, and powerful. They are very suitable for enterprise-class services to wherever. The Cisco offers many families for campus LAN-compact, including:

  • Catalyst 3560-CX Series Switches: These switches easily expand Ethernet and Multigigabit Ethernet infrastructure outside the wiring closet to enable new workspaces, extend wireless LANs, and connect PoE devices. With speeds that reach 10Gbps, the Catalyst 3560CX Multigigabit Ethernet Switches support current and next-generation wireless speeds and standards on existing cabling infrastructure. These switches enable IP connectivity for devices such as IP phones, wireless access points, surveillance cameras, PCs, and video endpoints. You can read more about this family: Catalyst 3560-CX Series Compact Switches Data Sheet
  • Catalyst 2960-C Series Switches: These switches easily extend an intelligent, fully managed Cisco Catalyst wired switching infrastructure, including end-to-end IP and Borderless Network services, with a single Ethernet cable or fiber from the wiring closet. You can read more about this family: Catalyst 3560-C and 2960-C Series Compact Switches Data Sheet
  • Catalyst 2960-CX Series Switches: When space is tight, start compact with a Catalyst 2960-CX switch. And expand your network as your company grows. Gain the enterprise features of a larger Cisco switch without using a lot of physical space. You can read more about this family: Catalyst 2960-CX Series Compact Switches Data Sheet
  • Catalyst 2960-L Series Switches: These smart managed switches are fixed and smart-managed Gigabit Ethernet switches that provide enterprise-class access switching for branch offices, out-of-the-wiring-closet applications, and critical Internet of Things (IoT) deployments, as well as small and medium-sized businesses. These switches also offer advanced Layer 2 features as well as PoE+ power. These switches deliver enhanced network security, network reliability, and operational efficiency. You can read more about this family: Catalyst 2960-L Series Compact Switches Data Sheet
  • Catalyst Digital Building Series Switches: This series switch is the industry’s most power-efficient switch optimized for low-voltage PoE deployments and connectivity. The Digital Building Series Switch lays the foundation for powering and converging disparate building subsystems (lighting, HVAC, badging systems, metering, CCTV, access) onto a single IP network. You can read more about this family: Catalyst Digital Building Series Switches Data Sheet
  • Cisco Catalyst Micro Switches: These Switches are Cisco’s purpose-built product family for FTTx deployments, allowing customers to eliminate IDF. These switches offer flexible mounting options and open up a variety of network design and connectivity opportunities. You can read more about this family: Catalyst Micro Switches Data Sheet Data Sheet

 

 

ITperfection,cisco, switches, Campus LAN Switches – core and distribution and data center

Cisco Catalyst and Cisco Nexus campus core and distribution LAN switches provide a broad range of deployment options in features, scale, port speeds, and interface types.

  • Catalyst 9600 Series Switches: The Cisco Catalyst 9606R chassis is hardware ready to support a wired switching capacity of up to 25.6 Tbps, with up to 6.4 Tbps of bandwidth per slot. The switches also support advanced routing and infrastructure services (such as MPLS Layer 2 and Layer 3 VPNs, Multicast VPN, and NAT), Cisco SDA capabilities, and network system virtualization with Cisco StackWise virtual technology that are critical for their placement in the campus core. You can read more about this family: Catalyst 9600 Series Switches Data Sheet
  • Catalyst 9500 Series Switches: Based on an x86 CPU, the Cisco Catalyst 9500 Series is Cisco’s lead purpose-built fixed core and aggregation enterprise switching platform, built for security, IoT, and cloud. The switches come with a 4-core x86, 2.4-GHz CPU, 16-GB DDR4 memory, and 16-GB internal storage. You can read more about this family: Catalyst 9500 Series Switches Data Sheet
  • Catalyst 9400 Series Switches – modular access: This series provides unparalleled investment protection with a chassis architecture that is capable of supporting up to 9 Tbps of system bandwidth and unmatched power delivery for high density IEEE 802.3bt (60W and 90W PoE). The Catalyst 9400 delivers state-of-the-art High Availability with capabilities like Cisco StackWise Virtual technology with ISSU, uplink resiliency, N+1/N+N redundancy for power supplies.. You can read more about this family: Catalyst 9400 Series Switches Data Sheet
  • Catalyst 6800 Series Switches: This Family Switches offer a 8-port 40-Gigabit Ethernet module to serve a variety of high-bandwidth needs for the next-generation enterprise. The line card includes two variants: the Catalyst 6800 8-port 40-Gigabit Ethernet Fiber Module non-XL and the Catalyst 6800 8-port 40-Gigabit Ethernet Fiber Module XL. The modules support hardware-based multicast replication, Quality of QoS, ACLs, jumbo frames, and low latency to enable secure and predictable performance for bandwidth-intensive applications. You can read more about this family: Catalyst 6800 Series Switches Data Sheet
  • Catalyst 6500 Virtual Switching System 1440: The Cisco Catalyst 6500 Virtual Switching System (VSS) 1440 takes the flagship Catalyst 6500 platform to the next level with network system virtualization. The key enabler of a VSS 1440 is the Virtual Switching Supervisor 720-10G. Any two Cisco Catalyst 6500 Series Switches with this supervisor engine can be pooled together into a VSS 1440. You can read more about this family: Catalyst 6500 Virtual Switching System 1440 Data Sheet
  • Catalyst 4500 Series Switches: Accelerate business growth and improve efficiency. The Catalyst 4500E Series is Cisco SD-Access-ready, and it’s the industry’s most widely deployed modular platform for campus access and distribution deployments. These switches offer 928 Gbps of wired and wireless converged access per system.
  • Catalyst 4500-X Series Switches: This series switch is a fixed aggregation switch that meets business growth objectives with unprecedented scalability, simplifies network virtualization with support for one-to-many and many-to-one virtual networks, and enables emerging applications by integrating many network services. You can read more about this family: Catalyst 4500-X Series Switches Data Sheet
  • Catalyst 3850 Series Switches: This series switches are stackable, multigigabit and 10-Gbps network switches. They give you wired and wireless together so you can scale up and protect your investments. Famous models of this family can be mentioned: Catalyst 3850-48XS, Catalyst 3850-24XS, Catalyst 3850-NM-8-10G, and Catalyst 3850-NM-2-40G.
  • Nexus 7000 Series Switches: The modular Cisco Nexus 7000 and 7700 switches deliver a comprehensive Cisco NX-OS feature set and open-source programmable tools for software-defined networking (SDN) deployments. They are a modular data center-class product line designed for highly scalable 1/10/40/100 Gigabit Ethernet networks with a fabric architecture that scales beyond 17 terabits per second (Tbps). You can read more about this family: Nexus 7000 Series Switches Data Sheet
  • Meraki MS400 Series: These switches provide cloud-managed aggregation switching for the campus. This series switches have 32 × 10G SFP+, and 2 × 40G QSFP+, and also 1 × RJ45 management port. Maximum switching capacity is 800 Gbps. Physical stacking of these switches are up to 8 switches with 160 Gbps stacking bandwidth on all models. You can read more about this family: Meraki MS400 Series

 

 

ITperfection,cisco, switches, Data center

The data center switch is a high performance switch mainly for large enterprises and cloud providers who rely heavily on virtualization.

  • Nexus 9000 Series Switches: Today data center networks must be simple, programmable, extensible, scalable, and shareable to meet the demands of applications. The Cisco Nexus 9000 Series Switches include the Nexus 9500 Series modular switches and the Nexus 9200/9300 Series fixed switches. This Series Switches operate in one of two modes: (A) Cisco Application Centric Infrastructure (Cisco ACI™) or (B) Cisco NX-OS. Mode B has more features and capabilities and is absolutely wonderful because in this mode, these switches provide the capability to use foundational layer 2/3 technologies, as well as modern technologies such as VXLAN, with a Border Gateway Protocol‒Ethernet VPN (BGP-EVPN) control plane, Segment routing, and MPLS. You can read more about this family: Nexus 9500 Series Switches Data Sheet
  • Nexus 7000 Series Switches: The modular Cisco Nexus 7000 and 7700 switches deliver a comprehensive Cisco NX-OS feature set and open-source programmable tools for software-defined networking (SDN) deployments. They are a modular data center-class product line designed for highly scalable 1/10/40/100 Gigabit Ethernet networks with a fabric architecture that scales beyond 17 terabits per second (Tbps). You can read more about this family: Nexus 7000 Series Switches Data Sheet
  • Nexus 5000 Series Switches: Cisco Nexus 5000 Series Switches are designed to deliver high-density top-of-rack (ToR) Layer 2 and Layer 3, 10/40 Gigabit Ethernet with unified ports in compact one-, two-, and four-rack-unit form factors. The Cisco Nexus 5000 Series includes the Cisco Nexus 5500 and 5600 platforms. The Cisco Nexus 5600 platform offers broad connectivity support, low latency, and virtual extensible LAN (VXLAN) technology. These capabilities make the switches ideal for ToR and end-of-rack (EoR) access and Cisco Fabric Extender (FEX) aggregation in traditional, converged, virtualized, and cloud deployments. You can read more about this family: Nexus 5000 Series Switches Data Sheet
  • Nexus 3550 Series: The 3550 Series offers high-density layer 1, fast layer 2 switching, high-speed multiplexing, and precision time stamping to power your ultra-low latency network applications. This series includes various models for different purposes: Nexus 3550-F Fusion L2, Nexus 3550-F Fusion Mux, Nexus 3550-F Fusion HPT, Nexus 3550-H Hydra L1-160, Nexus 3550-H Hydra L1-144. You can read more about this family: Nexus 3550 Series Switches Data Sheet
  • Nexus 3000 Series Switches: This Series offers low-latency, highly programmable, high-density switches. These compact fixed switches are excellent for general-purpose deployments, high-performance computing (HPC), high-frequency trading (HFT), massively scalable data center (MSDC), and cloud networks. This series includes various models for different purposes, which include: 3600 Series, 3500 Series, 3400 Series, 3200 Series, 3100-Z Series, 3100V, 3100, 3000 Series. You can read more about this family: Nexus 3000 Series Switches Data Sheet 

 

 

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Source: In preparing this blog, we have tried to use the documents and content available on the Cisco official website, namely the website cisco.com. All information is based on the contents of this website.

 

 

Read other blogs related to this series: