Cisco Network Consulting

Cisco's Catalyst line of modular and fixed managed switches provides performance and control at the access, distribution, and backbone areas of converged IP voice, HD video, and data networks for organizations that range in size from small businesses and branch offices to global enterprises and service providers. Progent's Cisco-certified CCIE consultants offer online and onsite expertise with Catalyst switches to help your organization to design an efficient infrastructure that meets your unique business needs, configure proof-of-concept testing, install Catalyst switches, implement and validate a sensible security and compliance strategy, streamline network management and monitoring, provide troubleshooting and maintenance services, maximize switch capacity, and configure Catalyst's high-availability (HA) solutions to achieve non-stop operation.

Progent can help you to manage and repair your legacy Catalyst switches or migrate seamlessly to the latest versions of Catalyst switches adhering to leading practices to make sure that you realize the most business value from your investment in your IT infrastructure.

The need for smart, high-performance switching is driven by a combination of fairly new computing patterns whose net effect is a virtual avalanche of traffic:

• Cloud and Internet of Things computing and an associated need for massive virtualization
• The pervasiveness of personal endpoints
• Bandwidth-intensive rich media applications
• Social media for business
• The rise of Big Data in analytics
• Ever more sophisticated threats such as ransomware

Cisco's latest lineup of Catalyst switches are ideal for the distribution/core layers of campus deployments where mobile and stationary employees must be provided for by offering predictable high speed, secure user access management, careful group isolation, application intelligence, and wired and wireless convergence. Cisco's Catalyst series switches address the need for speed and intelligence with features such as high-port-count 10G/40G/100G support, switching performance over 25 Tbps for each chassis, a powerful suite of technologies such as Easy Virtual Network (EVN) to simplify the creation of virtual networks, Virtual Switching System (VSS) technology for stateful interchassis failover with instant backup switch recovery and 99.999% availability, IPv6 capability, AVC to optimize network utilization, and advanced Quality of Service capabilities for business-critical data prioritization.

Catalyst switches enable businesses of all sizes to build smart switching services into their network infrastructure, creating an environment that can meet current needs, scale to support expected growth, protect sensitive data, and differentiate and control tasks to enhance network operations.

Catalyst 1000 Series Fixed Ethernet Switches
Cisco's Catalyst 1000 Layer 2 network access switches are small form factor, fixed switches intended for small businesses and branches with up to 250 workers and with minimal in-house IT support. The Catalyst 1000 Series includes fanless models for quiet operation within an office venue. Mounting kits include desktop, wall mount, rack mount, and DIN. Designed as a simple upgrade for Catalyst 2960-L or 2960-Plus Series deployments, Cisco's Catalyst 1000 Series includes versions with 8 to 48 Gigabit Ethernet ports or 24 to 48 Fast Ethernet 10/100M Mbps ports.

Catalyst Series 1000 configuration and administration are easy using a web UI or command-line interface, cybersecurity is enterprise-grade, and Power over Ethernet capability with a dynamically distributed power budget of 740W supports a wide variety of Internet of Things deployments. As many as eight Catalyst 1000 Gbit Ethernet Series switches can be managed at once with single IP. All Catalyst Series 1000 units are nonblocking line-rate switches, and all are powered by Cisco's familiar IOS operating system software. QoS features include egress queues for every port as well as priority queuing to provide optimized throughput for time-critical data. Catalyst 1000 switches also offer Shaped Round Robin (SRR) scheduling and Weighted Tail Drop (WTD) congestion avoidance.

Catalyst 9000 Series Fixed and Modular Managed Switches
The Cisco Catalyst 9000 series of managed switches includes modular and fixed switches and can support all deployment models including access, distribution, and core switching. The Catalyst 9000 family includes switches with the right price/performance to connect workers and things in environments from small businesses and branches to global enterprises. Catalyst 9000 switches can be set up to support any combination of onsite facilities, private and public clouds, and hybrid network models. Unified network management tools and advanced security solutions reduce cost of ownership by cutting operational overhead and safeguarding vital IT assets. Cisco's 9000X family of switches offer converged switching/routing, introducing the first mix of 400G optical transceivers plus full multigigabit and Power-over-Ethernet ports.

With double the stacking bandwidth for around half the price of the end-of-life Catalyst 2960-X and 2960-XR switches they are intended to replace, Cisco's Catalyst 9200 Series switches are a natural infrastructure upgrade for small branches and midsize campuses. The Catalyst 9200 family includes switches that support 24 or 48 ports with full Power over Ethernet; 80-160 Gbps stacking bandwidth; and Layer 3 features that include OSPF, EIGP distance routing protocol, IS-IS, and routed access. Cisco Catalyst 9200 switches run the Cisco IOS XE operating system.

The Catalyst 9200 offers 160-Gbps stacking throughput, supports onsite-replaceable redundant power supplies and fans, and supports swappable modules with 4x1G, 4x1/10G, 2x25G, or 2x40G uplink. Cisco's Catalyst 9200 Enhanced VN model allows up to 32 Virtual Networks and delivers 160-Gbps backplane stacking capacity. The Catalyst 9200L delivers 80-Gbps stacking performance. The Catalyst 9200L multigigabit and the Catalyst 9200 multigigabit offer wireless bandwidth optimization with 8 or 12 multigigabit ports up to 10Gbps.

Catalyst 9300 Series switches are fixed, stackable units for high-density enterprise access switching. Advanced capabilities provided with models in the Catalyst 9300 product line include 1T stacking throughput, stackable high-speed fiber, up to 448 multigigabit ports and 288 ports of 90W UPOE+ with an 8-unit configuration, end-to-end IPsec with AES-256 with MACsec 256-bit encryption and performance as high as 100G, redundant fans and power supplies, plus data stack and StackPower cables common throughout the entire Catalyst 9300 family.

Based on Cisco IOS XE, devices in the Catalyst 9300 product line offer auto provisioning, API-based configuration, high-granularity visibility for near realtime monitoring, and transparent software updates. Advanced security capabilities include Encrypted Traffic Analytics (ETA) as well as AES-256 MACsec and IPSec encryption, and Cisco Trust Anchor Technologies with Secure Boot. Cloud cybersecurity is strengthened because Catalyst 9300 Series switches are able to host the Cisco Umbrella agent directly. This makes it possible for organizations to implement their DNS filtering policies granularly to block BYOD or IoT clients from accessing dangerous websites.

The value-priced Cisco Catalyst 9300L switch delivers as much as 320G stacking bandwidth and supports 12 100M/1G/2.5G/5G/10G ports and 36 10M/100M/1G ports. The 9300L utilizes fixed rather than modular uplink hardware for 4 1G, 4 10G, or 2 40G ports. The Cisco Catalyst 9300 appliance features 480G of backplane stacking capacity and can provide 48 100M/1G/2.5G/5Gbps ports, 24 100M/1G/2.5G/5G/10Gbps Ethernet ports, or 48 1G SFP ports. Modular uplink performance supported are 1G, 10G, 25G, or 40G. The top-of-the-line Cisco Catalyst 9300X switch delivers up to 1Tbps backplane stacking capacity and supports 48 10G Ethernet ports. The 9300X accepts modular uplinks with dual-rate 100G/40G, multirate 25G/10G/1G, or multigigabit. Cisco 90W Universal Power Over Ethernet+ supports IoT-intensive environments such as smart buildings. Cisco offers hardware to support 100G IPsec.

Cisco's Catalyst 9400 Series devices are modular switches based on Cisco IOS XE and targeted for midsize and large campus access deployments. Delivering double the throughput and over four times the chassis bandwidth as the legacy Catalyst 6500 line it is designed to replace, Cisco's Catalyst 9400 portfolio ushers switch capability into the current age of networking driven by cybersecurity, mobility, IoT, and cloud.

Catalyst 9400 appliances are available with 4-slot, 7-slot, and 10-slot chassis. Two of the slots on the chassis are dedicated to redundant supervisor cards, leaving 2, 5, or 8 slots available for line cards. Maximum capacity for each line-card slot is 480G. Switching performance can reach 1.44 Tbps and forwarding performance on Supervisor Module can reach 9 Tbps for the 10-slot chassis. All Catalyst 9400 appliances offer 90W UPOE+ on every access port, secure segmentation with SD-Access and N+N/N+1 power redundancy for high resilience. Cisco's Catalyst 9400 4-slot switch supports 96 10/100/1000 ports, 5G/10G multigigabit ports, or 10G SFP+ ports. The Catalyst 9400 7-slot switch supports 240 ports, and the Catalyst 9400 10-slot supports 384 ports. All Catalyst 9400 models can support 2 non-blocking 40 Gigabit Ethernet Quad Small Form-Factor Pluggable uplinks and 8 non-blocking 10G SFP+ uplinks.

The Catalyst 9500 family consists of fixed core and edge services appliances designed for the large campus. Catalyst 9500 switches are based on the Cisco IOS XE operating system and the the family incorporates the first network technology to provide switching speeds above 25 Terabits per second.

Catalyst 9500 appliances provide up to 6.4 Tbps switching performance with forwarding speed up to 2 Billion Packet per Second. Catalyst 9500 switches can provide as many as 32 nonblocking 100 Gigabit QSFP28 ports, 32 nonblocking 40G QSFP+ ports, 48 nonblocking 25 Gigabit SFP28 ports, or 48 nonblocking 10 Gigabit SFP+ ports. You can configure Multichassis EtherChannel (MEC) across StackWise-Virtual members to achieve high resiliency.

Catalyst 9500X products can provide as high as 25.6 Tbps switching performance with 2 Billion Packet per Second forwarding speed. Catalyst 9500X models deliver up to 28 nonblocking 40/100 Gigabit QSFP28 optical ports or 8 nonblocking 40/100/200/400 G QSFP-DD ports. The 9500X product line also includes chip-level support for line-rate 256-bit 802.1AE Media Access Control Security (MACsec) and WAN-MACsec1 encryption.

Cisco's Catalyst 9600 Series switches are modular core and distribution switches intended for the enterprise campus. The 6-slot chassis with a Catalyst 9600X Series Supervisor delivers switching capacity up to 25.6 Terabits per second and can support up to 256 nonblocking 10/25/50 Gigabit Ethernet ports, 96 nonblocking 40/100G Gigabit ports, or 8 nonblocking 200/400 Gigabit QSFP-Double Density ports. The Catalyst 9600 also provides dual-rate 40G/100G and 10G/25G optics. Two chassis slots are dedicated for high-availability supervisors. You can mix and match a selection of line cards for core and aggregation deployment scenarios. The chassis is equipped with a passive backplane, making it possible to change out fan tray, power supplies, and line cards without disrupting operation.

End-of-Life Catalyst Series Switches Supported by Progent
Progent's Cisco certified network consultants have broad backgrounds providing remote and onsite consulting and troubleshooting expertise for early-generation Catalyst Series switches which have reached End of Life or End of Support. These legacy Catalyst switches typically are more expensive to manage and support than contemporary models, deliver less capacity and functionality, and in some situations can expose businesses to regulatory and even liability risks. Progent can assist you to support and troubleshoot these legacy switches and can also assist you to plan and execute non-disruptive upgrades to newer products from the Catalyst family or to devices from the Cisco Nexus line of switches which take advantage of Catalyst design experience.

Catalyst Express 500 Switches
The Catalyst Express 500 and 520 line of fixed-configuration switches are designed for companies with as many as 250 employees and deliver the dependability, protection, extensibility, and feature set small and mid-sized businesses require at an economical cost. PoE capability makes it easy to add network appliances such as VoIP phones and IP cameras.

Models of the Catalyst Express 500 managed switches support up to 24 10/100/1000BASE-T Ethernet ports as well as the option of redundant power supplies with automatic switch-over for extra dependability. Interoperation with Cisco wireless access points helps organizations to set up a wireless LAN environment quickly and easily. The Cisco Catalyst Express 500 and 520 platform provides solid security against viruses With the Cisco Self-Defending Network strategy and Cisco Clean Access agents. Cisco Catalyst 2940 Switch
Cisco Catalyst 2900 fixed-configuration, managed 10/100 Ethernet switches provide basic small-group connectivity for small to medium-size companies. These wire-rate desktop appliances offer IOS Software features for simple data, video, and voice services at the edge of the network. The Cisco 2940 family of managed switches are compact, stackable switches with eight Fast Ethernet connections plus one integrated Fast or Gbit uplink. The enclosures can be deployed outside the wiring cabinet in cramped locations like on or under a user's desk or in a classroom.

Cisco Catalyst 2960-S Series Switch
The Catalyst 2960-S Series are fixed switches designed for small companies and branch offices. Current models incorporate either 24 or 48 10/100/1000 Ethernet ports, four 1GE or two 10GE uplink connections, and provide throughput of 176 Gbps. Cisco's FlexStack feature allows up to four 2960-S chassis to be grouped in a stack to act like a single switching unit that offers 40 Gbps of stacking throughput and that reduces management costs because of single-switch setup. IPv6 FHS capability guards against IPv6 address interception and malicious attacks.

Cisco Catalyst 3560 Switches
Cisco's Catalyst 3560 Series is a line of non-modular switches that features IEEE 802.3af and Cisco Power over Ethernet (PoE) capability in 10/100 and 10/100/1000 Ethernet configurations. Cisco's Catalyst 3560 switch is a proven Layer 2 switch for small enterprise LAN access or local-offices, combining both Gigabit Ethernet and PoE options for high productivity while facilitating the deployment of key technology such a IP telephony, wireless access, video monitoring, and building management systems. Customers can activate network-wide intelligent features including QoS, rate limiting, ACLs, multicast administration, and high-performance IP routing while maintaining the simplicity of conventional LAN switching.

The Catalyst 3560 family switch offers a powerful array of capabilities that permit network expandability and higher resilience through IP routing as well as a full suite of Spanning Tree Protocol (STP) enhancements designed to increase throughput in a Layer 2 LAN. Improvements to the standard STP Protocol, such as Per-VLAN Spanning Tree Plus (PVST+), and Port Fast, as well as enhancements such as Flex Links interfaces, improve network uptime. Per-VLAN Spanning Tree Plus (PVST+) supports Data Link Layer traffic sharing on backup connections to take advantage of the additional capacity inherent in a redundant architecture.

Important technologies such as Open Shortest Path First (OPSF), Enhanced Interior Gateway Routing Protocol (EIGRP), Border Gateway Protocol, static routing, and Policy Based Routing increase network capacity; PIM helps improve resource utilization; and VRFLite secures network traffic.

Cisco Catalyst 3750 Family Switches
For mid-size organizations and corporate branch offices, Cisco's Catalyst 3750 Series switch simplifies deployment of converged applications and adapts to changing business environments by providing configuration versatility, ability to manage converged network traffic, and automatic configuration of intelligent system functions. In addition, the Cisco Catalyst 3750 Series switch is designed for high-density Gigabit deployments and incorporates a diverse range of switches that address the access, distribution, and backbone-interface demands of small or midsized deployments.

Cisco's Catalyst 3750 Series switch has the IP Base or the IP Services image. The IP Base image functions include industry-leading QoS, rate-management, access control lists (ACLs), and basic static and Routing Information Protocol routing capability. The IP Services image offers a broader set of enterprise-level features, including advanced built-in IP unicast/multicast routing.

StackWise technology is a mechanism designed for Gigabit interfaces. Cisco StackWise is designed to respond to additions, deletions, and redeployments while providing predictable operation. StackWise unites up to nine separate switches into one functional device, utilizing custom stack-interconnect cables and software. The individual switches can be any combination of the Catalyst 3750 switches and the Cisco Catalyst 3750-E Series. The stack operates as a single switching appliance that is managed by a control switch, selected from one of the member switches. The control switch automatically creates and keeps current all the switching and optional routing databases. A running stack can accept new devices or remove existing devices without service interruption.

Catalyst 2960 Series Switches and Catalyst 3560-CX Switches
Cisco's Catalyst 2960-CX is a fixed-configuration switch that is ultra-compact, fanless, power efficient, and includes a variety of mounting options. The switch incorporates eight 10/100/1000 Ethernet ports and two Gigabit Ethernet uplinks and has an option for Power over Ethernet (PoE). Cisco's Catalyst 3560-CX appliance is a fixed-port managed switch packaged in a sleek, quiet and low-power unit that can be placed almost anywhere outside a wiring closet. Models are available with eight or 12 10/100/1000 Ethernet ports or with six 1-GE ports and 2 multigigabit ports. Up to four uplinks are offered, and PoE+ power is also an option.

Cisco's Catalyst 2960-L line includes value-priced fixed-port managed switches intended for small offices, retail venues, and other places where space is at a premium. These low-profile switches have 8 to 48 Gigabit Ethernet ports and either two or four Small Form-Factor Pluggable (SFP) uplink ports. PoE support saves space and fan-free design for the 8- models does away with noise. RJ-45 interfaces accommodate 10BASE-T, 100BASE-TX, 1000BASE-T and 1000BASE-T SFP-based ports.

Cisco Catalyst 2960-X and 2960-XR Series switches enhance the 2690-S family by offering switching capacity as high as 216 Gbps and providing Cisco's FlexStack-Plus Stacking via a live-swappable module that can combine 8 switches in a stack with 80 Gbps of stacking performance. Catalyst 2900 family switches also work with NetFlow-Lite for application visibility and control. Cisco's Catalyst 2960-XR Series switch features Layer 3 dynamic routing, offering the simplicity of having one switch for Layer 2 and Layer 3 routing.

Catalyst 3650 and Catalyst 3850 Switches
Catalyst 3650 and Catalyst 3850 switches are fixed-configuration, stackable network access switches powered by Cisco's IOS XE operating system and featuring full wireless controller functionality that lets you converge wired and wireless networks on a one device managed by one operating system. Cisco offers models with either 24 or 48 1Gb Ethernet connections with PoE+, four 1-Gigabit or four 10GE uplinks, and support for up to nine switches per stack. All models offer modular QoS, stateful failover for high uptime, software support for IPv4/IPv6 routing, multicast, and advanced security features.

Because wireless data traffic is present at the Catalyst 3000 family switch, administrators can spot and prioritize wireless traffic by means of Cisco's Flexible NetFlow solution along with sophisticated QoS features for an improved wireless user environment and quicker problem mediation. Multigigabit Ethernet switching supports the high-bandwidth defined by the latest 802.11ac Wave 2 wireless specification on currently in-place cabling solutions. (To find out about Progent's support for Cisco's 802.11ac Aironet wireless products, and Meraki cloud-managed Wi-Fi access points, refer to Planning and Deployment Support for Cisco Wireless Technology.)

The Cisco Catalyst 3650 delivers stacking performance of 160 Gbps and supports as many as 25 Wi-Fi access points and 1000 wireless users on each switch or stack. The Cisco Catalyst 3850 switch offers stacking throughput of up to 480 Gbps and can control up to 50 Wi-Fi APs and 2000 wireless clients on each switch or stack. Catalyst 3850 SFP Fiber Switches have 12 or 24 1G fiber connections at line rate on every port, offering far reaching connections, advanced protection, and a consistent wired/wireless user experience.

Cisco Catalyst 4500-E and Catalyst 4500-X Series Switches
Cisco's Catalyst 4500-E Series and and Cisco Catalyst 4500-X Series switches are designed for campus and distribution environments where physical space for infrastructure hardware is at a premium. Powered by Cisco's IOS XE OS software, both the 4500-E and 4500-X families simplify virtualization thanks to Cisco's EVN and Virtual Switching System (VSS) solutions. Virtualization allows you to segment a hardware network into multiple virtual networks (VNs) whose data planes and control planes are logically separate. This makes possible the high resource utilization, security and compliance, resilience, and manageability required for Cloud computing or other scenarios where a common resource pool is shared by applications and services that need to run in complete isolation from one another. EVN speeds up the task of creating VNs and scales to 32 VNs per switch. Easy Virtual Network incorporates the capabilities of Multi-virtual routing and forwarding and includes new technologies including VNET Trunks and an easy technique for duplicating replicating routes connecting virtual networks. Virtual Switching System technology makes it easy to set up Catalyst 4500-E and Catalyst 4500-X Series switches to create non-stop virtual networks with advanced load balancing.

Cisco Catalyst 4500-E Series Switches
The Supervisor Engine 8-E for the Catalyst 4500-E switch includes a built-in wireless controller that works with Cisco's Unified Access solution for wired/wireless convergence. The Supervisor Engine 8-E is the first Cisco Catalyst supervisor engine to permit wired as well as wireless services on a single platform based on IOS XE software. Technologies include Cisco's FNF solution for capacity planning encompassing both wired and Wi-Fi networks, TrustSec wired and wireless security, predictable QoS for wired and Wi-Fi clients, plus the extension of Nonstop Forwarding with Stateful Switchover (NSF/SSO) to include Wi-Fi traffic for enterprise-class availability.

Offered in chassis with from three to 10 plug-in slots, Cisco Catalyst 4500-E Series switches can handle as many as 384 1-Gigabit Ethernet ports, 193 1GE fiber fiber connections, 96 10GE fiber ports, and eight 10GE uplinks. The Catalyst 4500-E Supervisor Engine 8-E delivers up to 928 Gbps of wired capacity per system and up to 20 Gbps of wireless termination capacity. 50 Wi-Fi APs and 2000 wireless clients can be handled per chassis, and up to 250 wireless access points and 4000 wireless users are supported in a two-switch installation without a separate wireless controller.

Cisco Catalyst 4500-X Switches
Catalyst 4500-X Series switches are fixed 10GE aggregation switches that provide 800 Gbps of backplane switching performance per chassis. The Catalyst 4500-X switch can have up to 32 10-Gigabit Ethernet ports on the unit's baseboard and eight additional 10GE ports on the expansion module for a total of 40 10GE ports. Eight 10GE uplink ports are also available via another module. In addition to providing zero-downtime operation and simple manageability, Cisco's VSS technology on Catalyst 4500-X Series switches offers higher system performance of as much as 1.6 Tbps by enabling all possible capacity across redundant Catalyst 4500-X Series switches. Additional advanced features include Flexible NetFlow technology for traffic analysis, Cisco TrustSec protection, and wire-rate IPv6 forwarding.

Cisco Catalyst 6500 Series and Cisco Catalyst 6800 Series Switches
Catalyst 6500 Series and Catalyst 6800 switches are enterprise campus core platforms that share the proven technology of the Catalyst 6500 family of products, which first appeared over a dozen years ago and which have been steadily improved ever since. Catalyst 6500 Series and Catalyst 6800 Series switches offer identical features and operation, and the modular Cisco Catalyst 6807-XL supports the Catalyst 6500 Supervisor Engine 2T and the associated family of compatible line cards and service modules. This cross compatibility and program of continual improvement protects your infrastructure investment and allows you to update your network backbone with minimal business disruption or IT staff training.

Shared features of Catalyst 6500 and Cisco Catalyst 6800 modular switches equipped with the Supervisor Engine 2T include Cisco's Identity Services Engine (ISE) for convenient, centralized management to put in place unvarying policy throughout a distributed network, VSS Quad Sup SSO (VS4O) technology for 99.999% uptime through multi-level redundancy, and the Cisco Campus Locator/ID Separation Protocol (LISP) to facilitate client roaming and device mobility and to simplify network virtualization and migration to IPv6. Additional virtualization features to segment distinct client groups and support the special security and QoS policy requirements of every group include L2/L3 VPN, complete MPLS, EVN, VRF-aware technology for Network Address Translation (NAT) NetFlow, IPv6 over IPv4 GRE Tunnel Protection, and L2 geographic extensions with virtual private LAN services. For unified wired/wireless environments, the Wireless Services Module 2 for Catalyst 6500 Series and Cisco Catalyst 6800 modular switches can manage up to 1000 APs and 15,000 wireless clients.

Catalyst 6500-E Series Switches
The Catalyst 6500-E family of modular switches are designed for aggregation and campus backbone networks that need world-class uptime and high densities of 1 Gigabit Ethernet, 1 GE fiber, and/or 10 and 40 Gigabit Ethernet access ports. Models include three to 13 slots and work with a wide range of modules. Integrated service modules enable wireless, traffic monitoring, and security. Just E-Series versions of Cisco's extensive line of Catalyst 6500 switches are compatible with the Supervisor Engine 2T.

The Cisco Catalyst 6503-E has a 4 rack unit chassis, holds 3 slots, and delivers as much as 180 Gbps of switching capacity on each slot. The Cisco Catalyst 6503-E supports 97 1-Gigabit Ethernet ports, up to 99 1GE fiber access ports, up to 34 10-Gigabit Ethernet ports, and 8 40GE access ports.

The high-end Cisco Catalyst 6513-E has a 19RU, 13-slot form factor and can deliver 180 Gbps of performance per slot, providing a system capacity of up to 4 Tbps. A VSS configured system can handle 8 Tbps of throughout. The Cisco Catalyst 6513-E Series switch offers a maximum of 529 1 Gigabit Ethernet access ports, up to 534 1GE fiber connections, 180 10-Gigabit Ethernet connections, and up to 44 40-Gigabit Ethernet connections.

Catalyst 6800 Switches
Cisco's Catalyst 6800 Series switches are programmable backbone platforms designed to provide best-of-breed 10/40/100 Gigabit Ethernet services. The Cisco Catalyst 6880-X switch is a fixed, small form factor platform for high-density Ethernet intended for small or medium-size enterprise campus backbones. The 6880-X delivers up to 2 Tbps bandwidth and has four slots for plug-in port cards. The top port concentration on one chassis is 80 10/100/1000 Ethernet access ports or 10GE connections or up to 20 40GE connections. With Cisco's Virtual Switching System, these switches can provide 4 Tbps switching bandwidth and handle up to 158 1 Gigabit Ethernet connections or 10GE access ports or as many as 20 40GE connections.

The modular Cisco Catalyst 6807-XL switch has a 10 RU form factor chassis with 7 expansion slots and supports standard Supervisor Engine 2T cards and service modules. (Two slots are for the Supervisor Engine and five are for modules.) The Catalyst 6807-XL can deliver up to 880 Gbps of switching throughput on each slot and 11.4 Tbps of full-duplex switching performance while handling up to 240 1 Gigabit Ethernet ports or Gigabit Ethernet fiber connections, 80 10GE connections or 20 40GE ports. A two-chassis 6807-XL system configured with VSS is capable of supporting 22.8 Tbps of switching throughput, 480 10/100/1000 Ethernet connections or 1GE fiber ports, 160 10GE access ports or 40 40GE connections.

Ways That Progent Can Assist Your Business with Catalyst Series Switches
Progent offers the remote or onsite expertise of Cisco CCIE-certified network consultants who have extensive backgrounds delivering Catalyst switch technology solutions for small and medium sized businesses, branches, campuses, data centers, Cloud networks, and service providers. Progent's areas of expertise include Cisco's Catalyst and Nexus families of managed switches and with Cisco's IOS, IOS-XR and NX-OS operating systems. Consulting and support services offered by Progent for Cisco Catalyst switches include proof-of-concept testing, system analysis, network architecture planning, upgrades and project management, network virtualization, wired and wireless convergence, network management, capacity planning, troubleshooting, disaster recovery planning, and data security testing and verification.

Progent offers broad knowledge of open standards and with Cisco-owned protocols and technologies associated with switching and routing such as Border Gateway Protocol, MPLS, PIM, VPNs, STP, virtual LANs, FabricPath, VPC, HSRP, Virtual Router Redundancy Protocol, OSPF, VSS, and LISP. Progent's infrastructure experts also offer deep knowledge of key technologies such as TCP/IP, IPv4, IPv6, Enhanced Interior Gateway Routing Protocol (EIGRP), Routing Information Protocol, and IGMP. Progent's CISSP-ISSAP certified information security and compliance consultants can assist you to create an enterprise-wide security and compliance plan and implement Catalyst switches so that they provide maximum support for your network security policies.

In case you require ultra high density or extremely low latency Cisco switches for an enterprise-class data center, Progent can help you to analyze, design, and manage a transition to Cisco's Nexus Series switches. To find out about Progent's consulting and support services for Nexus switches, refer to Nexus Switch consulting and support offered by Progent. Progent can also help you to integrate Catalyst data center switches with Meraki distribution switches. (See Cisco Meraki switch integration consultants.)

To find out additional information about Progent's consulting support for Cisco products, select a topic:

• Introduction to Progent's Cisco Engineering Services
• Fast Remote Assistance from a Cisco CCIE Consultant
• Cisco Firepower NGFW Series Firewalls: Integration and Management Expertise
• Cisco ASA 5500-X Series Firewall with Cisco Firepower Services: Setup and Management Services
• ASA 5500 Firewall Engineering Support
• PIX 500 Firewall Upgrade. Migration Expertise
• Cisco Routers Configuration and Troubleshooting Services
• Cisco Wireless Network Design Help
• Cisco Aironet Wireless APs Design Help
• Cisco Small Business WiFi Access Points Consulting Support
• Cisco Catalyst Wi-Fi 6/6E APs Solution Design, Configuration and Troubleshooting Expertise
• Cisco WiFi Controllers Experts
• Meraki Wireless Access Points Engineering Help
• Cisco Unified Communications Manager (CUCM or Unified CM) and Cisco CallManager Configuration and Technical Support
• Cisco Voice over IP Phones and IP Video Desktop Phones Consulting Services and Wireless IP Phone Configuration
• Cisco Jabber and Management Expertise
• Cisco Nexus Switches Deployment Expertise
• Meraki Switches Support and Troubleshooting Expertise
• Cisco VPN and Network Security Consulting Services
• SIP and CUBE Infrastructure Solutions: SIP PSTN Trunks and Cisco CUBE Integration Consulting
• Cisco Duo MFA Two-factor Authentication Services for Telecommuters
• Design Expertise for Cisco-powered Data Centers
• Data Center Design Services for Internet Service Providers
• Unified Cloud-based and Hybrid Management Technologies for Cisco-based Environments

To contact Progent about professional support for Cisco products, phone 1-800-993-9400 or visit Contact Progent.