Cisco Expert Network Consulting

The Catalyst family of modular and fixed-configuration managed switches provides performance and control at the access, aggregation, and backbone levels of converged voice, video, and data networks for organizations that range from small businesses and branches to multi-campus enterprises and service providers. Progent's Cisco-certified CCIE consultants can provide remote and on-premises support for Catalyst switches to assist your organization to plan a cost-effective infrastructure that addresses your unique business requirements, configure proof-of-concept testing systems, install Catalyst switches, implement and verify a sound security plan, automate network management and monitoring, deliver troubleshooting and maintenance services, optimize switch capacity, and configure Catalyst's high-availability (HA) technology to achieve near-zero downtime.

Progent can assist you to maintain and troubleshoot your older Catalyst switches or migrate seamlessly to current versions of Catalyst switches adhering to leading practices to ensure that you receive the highest return from your investment in your network.

The demand for intelligent, high-speed switching is driven by a confluence of fairly recent computing patterns whose net impact is a virtual avalanche of data:

• Cloud and Internet of Things networking and an associated demand for massive virtualization
• The pervasiveness of always-connected mobile devices
• Bandwidth-intensive HD video apps
• Social business technologies
• The rise of Big Data in data analytics
• Increasingly sophisticated threats such as ransomware

Cisco's current lineup of Catalyst switches are ideal for the distribution and core layers levels of enterprise campus deployments where office employees must be accommodated by providing predictable performance, strict user access control, tight group isolation, application awareness, and wired/wireless convergence. Catalyst switches address the need for speed and intelligence with features such as high-port-count 10G/40G/100G support, switching performance over 25T for each appliance, a comprehensive suite of tools including Easy Virtual Network (EVN) to facilitate the creation of VLANs, VSS technology for switch failover with subsecond backup switch recovery and "five nines" (99.999%) uptime, IPv4 and IPv6 capability, Application Visibility and Control to optimize system utilization, and sophisticated Quality of Service (QoS) tools for business-critical data control.

Catalyst switches allow businesses of any size to benefit from incorporating smart switching and routing services into their network architecture, creating an ecosystem that can meet real-time needs, scale to accommodate future growth, guard vital information, and differentiate and manage processes to enhance network productivity.

Catalyst 1000 Series Fixed Ethernet Switches
Cisco's Catalyst 1000 Series access switches are compact, fixed switches targeted for small businesses and branch offices with up to 250 workers and with little if any internal IT expertise. Cisco's Catalyst 1000 Series includes fanless models for quiet operation outside a wiring closet in an office environment. Mounting kits include desktop, wall mount, rack mount, and DIN. Designed as a simple replacement for Catalyst 2960-L or 2960-Plus deployments, Cisco's Catalyst 1000 portfolio includes versions with 8 to 48 Gigabit Ethernet ports or 24 to 48 Fast Ethernet 10/100M ports.

Catalyst 1000 configuration and management are simple via a web UI or command-line interface, security is enterprise-grade, and PoE+ capability with an automatically allocated budget of 740W allows a wide variety of Internet of Things deployments. As many as eight Catalyst 1000 Gbit Ethernet Series switches can be managed together with single IP. All Catalyst Series 1000 units are nonblocking line-rate switches, and all are powered by Cisco's venerable IOS operating system software. QoS features include egress queues on each port as well as priority queuing to provide optimized performance for time-critical traffic. Catalyst 1000 switches also offer Shaped Round Robin (SRR) scheduling and Weighted Tail Drop (WTD) congestion management.

Cisco Catalyst 9000 Series Fixed and Modular Managed Switches
The Cisco Catalyst 9000 family of managed switches includes modular and fixed units and can support all deployment models including access, aggregation, and core switching. The Cisco Catalyst 9000 line offers devices with the appropriate price/performance to connect workers and things in environments ranging from small businesses and branches to global enterprises. Catalyst 9000 Series products can be set up to support any mix of onsite facilities, private and public clouds, and hybrid networks. Unified network management utilities and cutting-edge security features reduce cost of ownership by cutting operational overhead and protecting critical network assets. Cisco's 9000X series of switches provide converged switching and routing, introducing the first mix of 400G optical transceivers plus full mGig and Power-over-Ethernet ports.

With double the stacking bandwidth for about half the price of the legacy Catalyst 2960-X and 2960-XR switches they are designed to replace, Cisco's Catalyst 9200 Series switches are a compelling infrastructure upgrade for small branch offices and midsize campus environments. The 9200 portfolio includes models that offer 24 or 48 ports with full PoE+; 80-160 Gbps backplane stacking performance; streaming telemetry; and Layer 3 features such as OSPF Interior Gateway Protocol, EIGP distance routing protocol, IS-IS link-state protocol, and routed access. Catalyst 9200 switches run the Cisco IOS XE operating system.

The Catalyst 9200 delivers 160-Gbps stacking throughput, supports field-replaceable redundant power supplies and fans, and supports swappable network modules with 4x1G, 4x1/10G, 2x25G, or 2x40G uplink. The Catalyst 9200 Enhanced VN model supports up to 32 Virtual Networks and delivers 160-Gbps backplane stacking capacity. The Catalyst 9200L delivers 80-Gbps stacking performance. Both the Catalyst 9200L multigigabit and the Catalyst 9200 multigigabit support wireless performance tuning with 8 or 12 mGig ports up to 10G.

Cisco's Catalyst 9300 Series switches are fixed, stackable appliances for ultra-high-density access switching. Advanced capabilities provided with various models in the Catalyst 9300 portfolio include 1T backplane stacking capacity, stackable high-speed fiber, up to 448 multigigabit ports including 288 ports of 90W UPOE+ with an 8-unit configuration, end-to-end IPsec tunnel with AES-256 Encryption and speeds as high as 100G, high-availability redundant fans and power, plus StackPower cables compatible across the entire Catalyst 9300 product line.

Based on the Cisco IOS XE operating system, switches in the Catalyst 9300 product line offer auto provisioning, API-driven configuration, granular visibility for near realtime monitoring, and transparent software updates. Advanced security features include Encrypted Traffic Analytics (ETA) along with AES-256 MACsec and IPSec encryption, and Trust Anchor Technologies with Secure Boot. Cloud security is strengthened because Catalyst 9300 switches can host the Cisco Umbrella agent directly. This makes it possible for organizations to customize their DNS filtering policies at user or group level to prevent BYOD or IoT clients from accessing malicious websites.

The entry-level Cisco Catalyst 9300L switch delivers up to 320G stacking throughput and offers 12 100M/1G/2.5G/5G/10G ports and 36 10M/100M/1G ports. The 9300L utilizes fixed instead of modular uplink hardware for 4 1G, 4 10G, or 2 40G uplink ports. The Cisco Catalyst 9300 appliance features 480G of backplane stacking bandwidth and supports 48 100M/1G/2.5G/5Gbps ports, 24 100M/1G/2.5G/5G/10Gbps 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 1T backplane stacking throughput and offers 48 10G Ethernet ports. The 9300X accepts uplink modules with dual-rate 100G/40G, multirate 25G/10G/1G, or mGig. Cisco 90W UPOE+ supports dense IoT applications. Cisco offers hardware to provide 100G IPsec.

Cisco's Catalyst 9400 Series appliances are modular switches powered by Cisco IOS XE and targeted for midsize and large campus access deployments. Delivering twice the throughput and over four times the chassis bandwidth as the Catalyst 6500 line it is designed to replace, Cisco's Catalyst 9400 portfolio ushers switch capability into the modern era of connectivity impelled by security, mobility, Internet of Things, and cloud.

Catalyst 9400 switches are available with 4-slot, 7-slot, and 10-slot chassis. Two of the slots on each chassis are dedicated to redundant supervisor cards, leaving 2, 5, or 8 slots available for line cards. Maximum bandwidth scalability per line-card slot is 480G. Switching performance can achieve 1.44 Terabits per second and forwarding rate on Supervisor Module is as high as 9 Tbps with the 10-slot chassis. All Catalyst 9400 appliances offer 90W UPOE+ on every port, secure network segmentation with SD-Access and N+N/N+1 power redundancy for high availability. Cisco's Catalyst 9400 4-slot switch can support 96 10/100/1000 ports, 5G/10G mGig 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 switches can support 2 non-blocking 40G QSFP uplinks and 8 non-blocking 10 Gigabit SFP+ uplinks.

The Catalyst 9500 family consists of fixed core and edge services switches intended for the enterprise campus. Catalyst 9500 switches are powered by the Cisco IOS XE operating system and the series incorporates the first infrastructure technology to deliver switching rates higher than 25 Tbps.

Catalyst 9500 models deliver as high as 6.4 Tbps switching performance with forwarding throughput up to 2 Billion Packet per Second. Catalyst 9500 switches can provide as many as 32 nonblocking 100 GB QSFP28 optical ports, 32 nonblocking 40G QSFP+ ports, 48 nonblocking 25G SFP28 ports, or 48 nonblocking 10 Gigabit SFP+ ports. You can deploy Multichassis EtherChannel (MEC) across Cisco StackWise-Virtual members for high availability.

Catalyst 9500X appliances support up to 25.6 Terabits per second switching capacity with up to 2 Bpps forwarding capacity. Catalyst 9500X models deliver up to 28 nonblocking 40/100 Gigabit QSFP28 optical ports or 8 nonblocking 40/100/200/400 Gigabit QSFP-DD ports. The 9500X line also includes chip-level capability for line-rate 256-bit 802.1AE MACsec and WAN-MACsec1 encryption.

Cisco's Catalyst 9600 Series switches are modular core and distribution appliances for the enterprise campus. The 6-slot 9600 Series chassis loaded with a Catalyst 9600X Series Supervisor has switching capacity up to 25.6 Terabits per second and can support as many as 256 nonblocking 10/25/50 Gigabit ports, 96 nonblocking 40/100G Gigabit ports, or 8 nonblocking 200/400 G QSFP-DD ports. The Catalyst 9600 switch also provides dual-rate 40G/100G and 10G/25G optics. Two chassis slots are reserved for redundant 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.

Legacy Catalyst Models Supported by Progent
Progent's Cisco CCIE-certified network consultants have extensive experience delivering online and onsite support expertise for legacy Catalyst Series switches which have reached End of Life. These legacy Catalyst switches often cost more to operate and support than contemporary products, deliver lower performance and fewer features, and in many situations may subject organizations to compliance and liability issues. Progent's consultants can assist your business to support and repair these legacy Cisco products and can also help you to plan and execute non-disruptive upgrades to current models within the Catalyst line or to solutions from the Cisco Nexus line of network switches which take advantage of Catalyst design experience.

Cisco Catalyst Express 500 and 520 Series
Cisco's Catalyst Express 500 line of Layer 2 switches are designed for organizations with as many as 250 employees and deliver the dependability, security, expandability, and feature set small businesses require at an economical price. Power over Ethernet capability makes it easy to add network devices such as VoIP phones and IP TV cameras.

Versions of the Catalyst Express 500 switches support from 8 to 24 10/100/1000BT Ethernet ports plus the option of redundant power with auto fail-over for additional dependability. Integration with Cisco wireless access points allows businesses to build a wireless LAN environment quickly and effectively. The Cisco Catalyst Express 500 and 520 family provides solid protection against malicious attacks With the Cisco Self-Defending Network technology and Clean Access solutions. Cisco Catalyst 2940 Switch
Catalyst 2900 Series non-modular, managed 10/100 switches provide fundamental workgroup networking for small to medium-size businesses (SMBs). These wire-rate desktop switches offer Cisco IOS Software functions for simple data, video, and voice services at the network edge. The Catalyst 2940 family of fixed-configuration switches are compact, entry-level devices featuring eight Fast Ethernet connections plus one integrated Fast or Gbit uplink. They can be installed outside the wiring closet in cramped areas such as on a user's desk or in a conference room.

Catalyst 2960-S Switch
The Cisco Catalyst 2960-S Series are fixed-configuration switches intended for small companies and branch offices. Available versions have 24 or 48 1Gb Ethernet ports, four 1-Gigabit or two 10-Gigabit uplink ports, and provide switching capacity of up to 176 Gbps. Cisco's FlexStack feature permits up to four 2960-S chassis to be combined in a FlexStack stack to perform as a single switching unit that provides 40 Gbps of stacking performance and that cuts administrative expense with single-switch configuration. Cisco's IPv6 FHS capability guards networks against IPv6 address interception and malicious threats.

Catalyst 3560 Switches
Cisco’s Catalyst 3560 family is a line of non-modular switches that includes IEEE 802.3af and Power over Ethernet capability in 10/100 Ethernet and 10/100/1000 Ethernet implementations. The Catalyst 3560 switch is a proven Layer 2 switch for small enterprise network connectivity or local-office environments, offering both Gigabit and Power over Ethernet (PoE) options for high efficiency while streamlining the installation of key technology including VoIP, wireless connectivity, video surveillance, and building management systems. Customers can activate network-wide smart features such as quality of service (QoS), rate limiting, access control lists, multicast management, and high-performance IP routing with the simplicity of traditional LAN switching.

The Cisco Catalyst 3560 switch has a robust set of features that permit network scalability and higher availability via IP routing as well as a full suite of Spanning Tree Protocol improvements designed to maximize availability in an access Layer LAN. Improvements to the standard Spanning Tree Protocol, including Per-VLAN Spanning Tree Plus, and Port Fast, combined with innovations like Flex Links, improve network efficiency. Per-VLAN Spanning Tree Plus (PVST+) supports Layer 2 load sharing on redundant links to efficiently use the additional capacity inherent in a redundant architecture.

Important technologies including Open Shortest Path First (OPSF), Enhanced Interior Gateway Routing Protocol, BGP, static routing, and PBR improve system scale; PIM improves resource utilization; and VRFLite secures data.

Catalyst 3750 Series Switches
For mid-size businesses and corporate branches, the Cisco Catalyst 3750 Series switch facilitates deployment of converged technologies and accommodates evolving business needs by offering setup flexibility, ability to manage converged network traffic, and automatic set up of intelligent system functions. Also, the Cisco Catalyst 3750 Series is engineered for high-volume 1000 Ethernet environments and includes a wide selection of switches that meet the access, distribution, and backbone-connectivity requirements of small or midsized systems.

Cisco's Catalyst 3750 Series includes the IP Base image or the Services image. The IP Base image capabilities include industry-leading quality of service (QoS), rate-management, access control lists (ACLs), and simple static and Routing Information Protocol routing capability. The IP Services image provides a richer set of enterprise-grade features, including sophisticated hardware-based IP unicast/multicast routing.

StackWise technology is a stacking architecture designed for Gigabit Ethernet. This technology is intended to respond to installs, deletions, and redeployments while maintaining predictable operation. Cisco StackWise combines as many as 9 separate switches into one functional device, using custom stack-interconnect cables and stacking software. The individual switches can be any combination of the Cisco Catalyst 3750 Series and Cisco's Catalyst 3750-E Series switches. The stack behaves as a single switching unit that is managed by a master switch, chosen from one of the member switches. The control switch intelligently creates and keeps current all the switching and user-selected routing tables. A working stack can accept new devices or delete old members without operational discontinuity.

Catalyst 2960 Series Switches and Catalyst 3560-CX Switches
Cisco's Catalyst 2960-CX is a fixed-port managed switch that is ultra-compact, fanless, low power, and allows flexible mounting options. The switch has eight 10/100/1000 Ethernet ports and two Gigabit Ethernet uplinks and has an option for Power over Ethernet. Cisco's Catalyst 3560-CX is a fixed-configuration switch housed in a compact, quiet and energy-efficient enclosure that can be placed virtually anywhere convenient. Models are offered with eight or 12 10/100/1000 Ethernet ports or with 6 1-GE ports and two multigigabit Ethernet ports. Two or four uplinks are offered, and PoE+ power is also available.

Cisco's Catalyst 2960-L family includes value-priced fixed-configuration switches targeted for branch offices, retail areas, and other environments where space is limited. Catalyst 2900-L low-profile appliances have 8 to 48 Gigabit Ethernet ports and 2 or 4 SFP uplink ports. Power over Ethernet support reduces clutter and fan-free operation for most versions eliminates noise. RJ-45 interfaces handle 10BASE-T, 100BASE-TX, 1000BASE-T and 1000BASE-T SFP-based ports.

Cisco Catalyst 2960-X and Catalyst 2960-XR switches enhance the 2690-S family of switches by delivering switching performance of up to 216 Gbps and providing Cisco's FlexStack-Plus stacking technology via a hot-swappable module that can combine 8 switches in a stack capable of 80 Gbps of stacking throughput. Cisco Catalyst 2900 Series switches also support NetFlow-Lite for flow-based traffic monitoring. The Catalyst 2960-XR switch features L3 dynamic routing, providing the convenience of using a single switch for Layer 2 and Layer 3 routing.

Cisco Catalyst 3650 and 3850 Switches
Cisco Catalyst 3650 and Catalyst 3850 series switches are fixed, stackable access devices based on Cisco's IOS XE OS and featuring comprehensive wireless network controller capability that lets you converge wired and wireless infrastructure on a one platform managed by a single operating system. Cisco has versions with either 24 or 48 built-in 1Gb Ethernet connections with PoE plus, four 1GE or four 10GE uplink ports, and capacity for up to 9 Catalyst switches per stack. All versions provide expandable QoS, stateful switchover for maximum uptime, support in software for IPv4/IPv6 routing, multicast, and advanced security features.

Since wireless data traffic is present at the Catalyst 3000 family switch, it is possible to identify and prioritize wireless data with Cisco's Flexible NetFlow solution and sophisticated Quality of Service features for a better user experience and faster problem mediation. Fast Ethernet switching can handle the high-bandwidth called for by the new 802.11ac Wave 2 Wi-Fi standard on existing cabling solutions. (To find out about Progent's support for Cisco's 802.11ac Aironet Wi-Fi technology, and Cisco's Meraki cloud-managed Wi-Fi access points, refer to Planning and Deployment Consulting Services for Cisco Wireless Technology.)

The Cisco Catalyst 3650 Series switch delivers stacking performance of up to 160 Gbps and supports as many as 25 wireless access points and 1000 wireless users per switch or stack. The Cisco Catalyst 3850 Series switch delivers stacking performance as high as 480 Gbps and supports up to 50 Wi-Fi APs and 2000 Wi-Fi clients per stack. Cisco Catalyst 3850 SFP Fiber Switches incorporate 12 or 24 1G fiber ports at line rate, providing long distance connections, enhanced security, and an identical wired and wireless experience.

Catalyst 4500-E Series and Cisco Catalyst 4500-X Series Switches
Cisco's Catalyst 4500-E and and Cisco Catalyst 4500-X Series switches are intended for access and distribution deployments where physical space for infrastructure hardware is at a premium. Running Cisco's IOS XE control software, both the 4500-E and 4500-X families simplify virtualization by supporting Cisco's Easy Virtual Network and VSS technologies. Network virtualization allows you to segment a hardware network into multiple virtual networks whose data and control planes are logically separate. This provides the high resource utilization, protection, resilience, and ease of management required for Cloud computing or other situations where a single resource pool is used by software and services that must operate in complete privacy from one another. EVN streamlines the task of creating virtual networks and can be expanded to 32 VNs per switch. EVN utilizes the capabilities of Multi-virtual routing and forwarding (VRF) and provides new technologies such as VNET Trunks and a simple way for duplicating replicating routes between VNs. Virtual Switching System makes it easy to configure Catalyst 4500-E and 4500-X Series switches to produce zero-downtime virtual networks with advanced traffic load balancing.

Catalyst 4500-E Series Switches
Cisco's Supervisor Engine 8-E for the Catalyst 4500-E switch includes an integrated wireless controller that supports Cisco's Unified Access solution for wired/wireless convergence. this is the initial Catalyst supervisor to permit wired plus wireless services on a single switch powered by IOS XE. Features included are Cisco's FNF technology for application visibility encompassing wired and wireless networks, TrustSec wired/wireless data security, identical QoS for wired and Wi-Fi clients, and the extension of Nonstop Forwarding with Stateful Switchover (NSF/SSO) to cover wireless data traffic for world-class availability.

Available in chassis that have from three to 10 slots, Cisco Catalyst 4500-E switches with Supervisor 8-E can handle up to 384 1-Gigabit Ethernet access ports, 193 Gigabit Ethernet non-blocking fiber ports, 96 10-Gigabit Ethernet fiber ports, and eight 10GE uplinks. The Catalyst 4500-E Supervisor Engine 8-E provides up to 928 Gbps of wired access for each system and 20 Gbps of wireless termination performance. 50 Wi-Fi access points and 2000 wireless clients can be supported per chassis, and 250 wireless access points and 4000 wireless users are managed in a dual-switch installation without requiring a separate wireless controller.

Cisco Catalyst 4500-X Series Switches
Cisco's Catalyst 4500-X Series switches are fixed-configuration 10GE aggregation platforms that deliver 800 Gbps of backplane switching capacity per chassis. The Catalyst 4500-X switch can have up to 32 10-Gigabit Ethernet ports on the unit's baseboard and eight extra 10-Gigabit Ethernet ports on the optional expansion module for a maximum of 40 10GE ports. Eight 10-Gigabit Ethernet uplinks can be added with a separate module. In addition to providing zero-downtime operation and simple manageability, Cisco's VSS technology on Catalyst 4500-X switches provides increased system throughput of as much as 1.6 Tbps by enabling all possible capacity between redundant Catalyst 4500-X switches. Other features include Cisco's Flexible NetFlow solution for application visibility, Cisco TrustSec security, and fast, hardware-based IPv6 forwarding.

Cisco Catalyst 6500 Series and Cisco Catalyst 6800 Series Switches
Catalyst 6500 and Cisco Catalyst 6800 switches are enterprise campus core platforms that incorporate the proven DNA of the Catalyst 6500 family of products, which first appeared over a dozen years ago and which have been steadily enhanced ever since. Cisco Catalyst 6500 Series and Catalyst 6800 Series switches provide the same general features and operational consistency, and the modular Catalyst 6807-XL supports the Catalyst 6500 Supervisor Engine 2T and its extensive family of compatible line cards and modules. This mutual compatibility and program of continual improvement protects your information technology expenditures and enables you to update your network backbone with minimal downtime or IT staff training.

Common attributes of Catalyst 6500 and Cisco Catalyst 6800 Series modular switches equipped with the Supervisor Engine 2T include Cisco's Identity Services Engine for convenient, centralized control to ensure unvarying policy throughout a distributed environment, VSS capability for maximum availability via multi-level switchover, and Cisco's Campus Locator/ID Separation Protocol (LISP) to facilitate roaming and mobility and to simplify virtualization and transition to IPv6. Additional virtual networking tools to partition specific user groups and serve the special security and Quality of Service policy requirements of every group include L2/L3 VPN, full MPLS, Easy Virtual Network, VPN Routing and Forwarding-aware technology for NAT NetFlow, IPv6 over IPv4 GRE Tunnel Protection, and Layer 2 geographic extensions with VPLS. For converged wired/wireless environments, the WiSM2 controller Catalyst 6500 and Cisco Catalyst 6800 modular switches supports as many as 1000 wireless access points and 15,000 wireless users.

Catalyst 6500-E Series Switches
The Catalyst 6500-E Series of modular switches are designed for aggregation and enterprise core networks that need world-class uptime and high densities of 1 Gigabit Ethernet, 1 Gigabit Ethernet fiber, or 10 and 40 Gigabit Ethernet access ports. Available versions include three to 13 expansion slots and accept a broad selection of interfaces. Integrated service modules enable wireless, network monitoring, and security and compliance. Only E-Series models of Cisco's extensive family of 6500 switches work with Cisco's Supervisor Engine 2T.

The value-priced Cisco Catalyst 6503-E has a 4 rack unit (4RU) form factor, holds 3 expansion slots, and offers 180 Gbps of switching bandwidth per slot. The Cisco Catalyst 6503-E can support up to 97 10/100/1000 Ethernet ports, up to 99 Gigabit Ethernet fiber connections, up to 34 10GE ports, and 8 40-Gigabit Ethernet ports.

The top-of-the-line Catalyst 6513-E switch has a 19RU, 13-slot form factor and offers as much as 180 Gbps of capacity on each slot, providing a total system bandwidth as high as 4 Tbps. A Virtual Switching System configuration can deliver up to 8 Tbps of bandwidth. The Catalyst 6513-E Series switch offers up to 529 10/100/1000 Ethernet ports, up to 534 1GE fiber ports, up to 180 10-Gigabit Ethernet connections, and 44 40GE access ports.

Catalyst 6800 Switches
Cisco's Catalyst 6800 switches are programmable backbone switches designed to deliver best-of-breed 10/40/100 GE support. The Catalyst 6880-X switch is a fixed-configuration, compact platform for Ethernet aggregation intended for small or medium-size campus backbones. The Catalyst 6880-X switch supports up to 2 Tbps switching bandwidth and includes four slots for port cards. The top port density on one chassis is 80 1 Gigabit Ethernet connections or 10-Gigabit Ethernet connections or as many as 20 40GE connections. With VSS, a two-chassis system can deliver 4 Tbps throughput and handle up to 158 10/100/1000 Ethernet ports or 10-Gigabit Ethernet connections or as many as 20 40-Gigabit Ethernet connections.

The modular Cisco Catalyst 6807-XL switch comes in a 10 RU form factor with 7 expansion slots and accepts existing Supervisor Engine 2T line cards and modules. (Two slots are for the Supervisor Engine and the other five are for expansion modules.) The Cisco Catalyst 6807-XL can deliver as much as 880 Gbps of switching throughput per slot and up to 11.4 Tbps of switching bandwidth while supporting up to 240 10/100/1000 Ethernet access ports or 1GE fiber connections, up to 80 10-Gigabit Ethernet connections or 20 40GE connections. A two-chassis 6807-XL system configured with VSS can support 22.8 Tbps of switching capacity, 480 10/100/1000 Ethernet ports or Gigabit Ethernet fiber ports, up to 160 10-Gigabit Ethernet access ports or 40 40-Gigabit Ethernet connections.

How Progent Can Assist Your Business with Cisco Catalyst Switches
Progent offers the online or onsite support services of Cisco CCIE-certified consultants who have broad experience providing Catalyst switch technology support for small and midsize businesses, branches, campuses, data centers, Cloud networks, and service providers. Progent's areas of expertise include Catalyst and Nexus families of smart switches and Cisco's IOS and NX-OS operating systems. Support services available from Progent's experts for Cisco Catalyst switches include proof-of-concept testing and validation, system analysis and monitoring, topology planning, upgrades and project management, virtualization, wired/wireless convergence, management automation, capacity planning, troubleshooting, business continuity preparedness, and IT security testing and validation.

Progent offers deep knowledge of open standards as well as with Cisco-owned protocols related to switching and routing including BGP, MPLS traffic engineering, Protocol Independent Multicast, VPNs, STP, virtual LANs, Cisco FabricPath, Virtual Private Cloud (VPC), HSRP, VRRP, Open Shortest Path First (OSPF), Virtual Switching System (VSS), and Locator/ID Separation Protocol (LISP). Progent's infrastructure specialists also offer familiarity with important technologies such as TCP/IP protocols, IPv4, IPv6, Enhanced Interior Gateway Routing Protocol, Routing Information Protocol (RIP), and Internet Group Management Protocol (IGMP). Progent's CISSP-ISSAP certified information security consultants can show you how to create a comprehensive security plan and deploy Cisco Catalyst switches so they offer maximum support for your network security policies.

If you need ultra high density or sub-microsecond latency switches for an enterprise-class data center, Progent can help you to evaluate, plan, and manage a transition to Nexus Series switches. To learn about Progent's consulting and support services for Cisco's Nexus Series switches, see Cisco Nexus Switch consulting and support services available from Progent. Progent can also assist you to connect Catalyst data center switches with Meraki aggregation switches. (See Cisco Meraki switch integration consultants.)

To find out more details concerning Progent's professional help for Cisco technology, select a topic:

• Introduction to Cisco Network Support
• Timely Remote Support from a CCIE Network Engineer
• Cisco Firepower NGFW Series Firewalls: Configuration and Management Expertise
• Cisco ASA 5500-X Firewalls with Cisco Firepower Services: Consulting and Troubleshooting Expertise
• Cisco ASA 5500 Firewall Integration Support
• Cisco PIX Series Firewall Upgrade. Migration Services
• Cisco Routers Consulting Support
• Cisco Wireless Deployment Services
• Aironet Wireless APs Design Help
• Cisco Small Business WiFi Access Points Engineering Services
• Cisco Catalyst 802.11ax Wi-Fi 6/6E APs Planning, Deployment and Troubleshooting Support
• Cisco Wireless Controllers Consultants
• Meraki Access Points Deployment Expertise
• Cisco Unified Communications Manager (CUCM or Unified CM) and Cisco CallManager Consulting and Technical Support
• Cisco VoIP Phones and IP Video Desktop Phones Expertise and Wireless IP Phone Configuration
• Cisco Jabber and Management Services
• Cisco Nexus Switches Configuration and Maintenance Expertise
• Meraki Switches Consulting and Support Services
• Cisco VPN Engineering Expertise
• SIP and CUBE Infrastructure Solutions: SIP Trunks and CUBE Integration Consulting
• Design and Support for Cisco-based Data Centers
• Infrastructure Design Expertise for Internet Service Providers
• Remote Management Techniques for Cisco-powered Infrastructure

To contact Progent about engineering help for Cisco technology, phone 1-800-993-9400 or go to Contact Progent.