Cisco Catalyst 6500 Series Switches Overview

The Cisco Catalyst 6500 Series Switches provide a leading industry performance accompanied with a broad range of interface modules and high port densities. The Cisco Catalyst 6500 Series Switch can be found in 3-, 4-, 6-, 9, 9-Vertical, and 13-slot versions that make it ideal for a broad range of deployment scenarios, both Datacenter and Service Provider environments. These switches are the main engine of enterprise WAN and Layer 2 Carrier Ethernet architectures. They offer hardware-enabled IPv4, IPv6, MPLS, leading Layer 2 switching and high performance in a single expendable platform. The Cisco Catalyst 6500 Series Switches are mostly selected to bear the burden of the access, aggregation, and core edge of the Service Provider and Datacenter network architectures.

The Cisco Catalyst 6500 Series Switch offers some key advantages which put it in front of its rivals. For example it has optimized switching capabilities with centralized and distributed MAC learning in hardware, it offers support for Jumbo frames so it handles burst traffic with ease, with the help of the Cisco Catalyst 6500 Series Supervisor Engine 720 it will have 720 GB/s integrated switch fabric capacity and it offers high density with Gigabit and 10-Gigabit Ethernet support.

As the bandwidth demands and the Internet become more popular, the Cisco Catalyst 6500 Series Switches are an optimal solution for Service Providers. In the recent years’ service Providers have evolved enormously and today the components of their networks must provide some unique features and they must meet their requirements:

• The network components must offer scalability and must operate with stability under the pressure of bandwidth-intensive applications. They must provide non-disruptive service.
• Service Providers need network components that will offer flexibility. The most important aspect of this is the ability to integrate “Triple-Play” and TLS services based on Layer 2, IP, and MPLS technologies.
• Today Service Providers offer many independent services to their clients so they must be able to apply QoS on these services. That’s why the network components must enable voice, video, and data on the same platform, with jitter, latency, and packet loss guarantees.
• Service Providers need high security so their data and resources are very well protected from internal and external attacks.
• The Service Provider network components must offer a broad range of features to support different technologies simultaneously.
• The last but not the least, they must offer manageability through ease of service provisioning, improved operational efficiency and reduced OpEx costs.

The Cisco Catalyst 6500 Series Switches are able to meet every aspect of the requirements above. They offer some unique characteristics and features that enable them to form the foundation of many Service Provider network architectures. They offer huge benefits for your network architecture and they are an attractive and very popular solution for many networks. With the features mentioned above the Cisco Catalyst 6500 Series Switches will provide three key benefits to your network:

• The big customization options- with the chassis style design and many optional modules to choose from, the Cisco Catalyst 6500 switch offers enormous flexibility. Cisco gives you the opportunity to choose from a wide range of product options to populate the space in the chassis. You can select different power supplies, different modules and supervisors and different blades as well. With so many free slots and additional components that you can use, it’s easy to see why this switch series is among the most popular and most trustworthy with the IT leaders.
• The power of flexibility and scalability- whether you need greater speed, experiencing company growth or just implementing something new that requires more network resources, the Cisco Catalyst 6500 Switch Series will come in handy. There are many kinds of changes that might happen in a network architecture and with the flexibility of this switch series you will be able to do them quickly and easily. In addition the support of 32 GB/s bus-based architecture is ideal for low-speed WAN aggregation.
• The irreplaceable power- Cisco Catalyst 6500 Switch Series offer an irreplaceable amount of power. This switch series is capable of delivering up to 4 terabits per second of system bandwidth and 180Gbps of per-slot bandwidth. This means that you can convert your network in an ultra-fast, state of the art network architecture and boost your network performance.

The most important features together with the benefits they bring to your network are shown in the table below:

The Cisco Catalyst 6500-E Series Switch comes in 3-, 4-, 6-, 9, 9-Vertical, and 13-slot versions that make it ideal for a range of deployment scenarios. Every single slot version of the above has the same supervisor compatibility. The compatible supervisors can be found in the table below:

Because each version supports the same supervisors, the supported modules and software requirements depend on the supervisor types. The Cisco Catalyst 6500 Series Switches support Gigabit Interface Converters (GBICs), 10 Gigabit Ethernet Switching Modules, 10/100/1000 Ethernet Switching Modules, Fast Ethernet Switching Modules, Ethernet/Fast Ethernet (10/100) Switching Modules and a single Ethernet Switching Module.

10 Gigabit Ethernet Switching Modules

Gigabit Interface Converters (GBICs)

10/100/1000 Ethernet Switching Modules

Fast Ethernet Switching Modules

Ethernet/Fast Ethernet (10/100) Switching Modules

Ethernet Switching Module

When it comes to fiber optic components capability, the Cisco Catalyst 6500 Switch Series support a wide range of optical transceivers. Their compatibility depends on the type of module used in the chassis. For easier distinguishing we list them depending on the type of modules:

Pluggable Optics for 10 Gigabit Ethernet Modules- these modules can be found as 16-port 10 Gigabit Ethernet copper module suitable for deployment in Datacenter access and switch-to-switch connectivity, 16-port 10 Gigabit Ethernet fiber module suitable for deployment in LAN campus and Datacenter distribution and access layers, 8-port 10 Gigabit Ethernet fiber module suitable for deployment in Datacenter core and distribution layers, LAN campus core and distribution layers and Service Providers and 4-port 10 Gigabit Ethernet fiber module suitable for deployment in core, inter-building connections, POPs, WAN edge, and MAN connections. These modules support XENPAK, X2 optics and copper components.

Gigabit Interface Module key features and pluggable options- Cisco Catalyst 6500 series mixed media/fiber-based gigabit Ethernet interface modules are mainly used in distribution and core layers, Datacenter and Metro Ethernet applications. They provide superior traffic management with link resiliency and scalable bandwidth aggregation.

All of the above mentioned benefits and features are only a small part of the bigger picture that the Cisco Catalyst 6500 Switch Series brings to your network. Even though this switch series cost more upfront, it reaps long term benefits. This is a crucial aspect to consider when planning the future of your network infrastructure. With the deployment of this switch series your slightly bigger upfront investment reaps performance and financial rewards in the long run.