Cisco Certified Network Consultants

Cisco's Catalyst line of modular and fixed switches provides performance and intelligence at the access, aggregation, and backbone areas of converged voice, video, and data networks for businesses that range in size from small businesses and branch offices to multi-campus enterprises and service providers. Progent's Cisco-certified consultants can provide online and on-premises expertise with Catalyst family switches to help you to design a cost-effective network architecture that meets your unique business needs, set up proof-of-concept testing, install Catalyst switches, establish and verify a sound security and compliance plan, automate system management and monitoring, provide repair and support services, maximize switch capacity, and set up Catalyst's high-availability (HA) technology for non-stop operation.

Progent can assist you to maintain and repair your older Catalyst switches or upgrade efficiently to the latest versions of Catalyst switches adhering to leading practices to make sure that you get the maximum return from your investment in your network.

The need for smart, fast switching is driven by a confluence of fairly recent computing patterns whose overall impact is a virtual tsunami of data traffic:

• Cloud and IoT computing and an associated demand for massive network virtualization
• The pervasiveness of always-connected mobile devices
• Bandwidth-intensive HD video apps
• Social business technologies
• The popularity of Big Data in enterprise data analytics
• Ever more advanced threats like ransomware

Cisco's current lineup of Catalyst switches are ideal for the distribution and core layers layers of enterprise campus deployments where office employees must be supported with dependable high throughput, secure access management, careful segregation, application awareness, and wired/wireless convergence. Catalyst series switches are designed to meet the need for performance and control with features such as high-density 10, 40, and 100 Gigabit Ethernet services, switching performance more than 25T per chassis, an extensive suite of tools such as EVN to simplify the creation of virtual networks, Virtual Switching System technology for stateful failover with instant backup switch recovery and "five nines" (99.999%) uptime, IPv4 and IPv6 capability, AVC to optimize network utilization, and sophisticated Quality of Service (QoS) capabilities for critical data prioritization.

Catalyst switches allow businesses of any size to build smart switching features into their network architecture, deploying an ecosystem that can deal with current requirements, expand to support future growth, protect sensitive data, and differentiate and control processes to optimize network operations.

Catalyst 1000 Series Fixed Ethernet Switches
Cisco's Catalyst 1000 Layer 2 network access switches are compact, fixed-configuration switches targeted for smaller businesses and branches with as many as 250 workers and with little if any internal IT support. Cisco's Catalyst 1000 Series includes fanless models for silent operation outside a wiring closet in an office environment. Mounting options include desktop, wall mount, standard rack mount, and DIN. Designed as an easy replacement for Cisco Catalyst 2960-L or 2960-Plus Series deployments, the Catalyst 1000 Series includes versions with 8 to 48G Ethernet ports or 24 to 48 Fast Ethernet 10/100M Mbps ports.

Catalyst Series 1000 set up and management are easy using a web UI or CLI, cybersecurity is enterprise-class, and Power over Ethernet ports with a dynamically allocated power budget of 740W supports a wide range of Internet of Things (IoT) implementations. As many as eight Catalyst 1000 Gigabit Ethernet Series switches can be controlled together with single IP. Catalyst 1000 units are nonblocking line-rate devices, and all are based on Cisco's venerable IOS operating system software. Quality-of-Service (QoS) capabilities include egress queues for each port as well as priority queuing to allow optimized throughput for all classes of traffic. Catalyst Series 1000 switches also support Shaped Round Robin service scheduling and Weighted Tail Drop (WTD) congestion avoidance.

Cisco Catalyst 9000 Series Fixed and Modular Managed Switches
The Catalyst 9000 series of managed switches offers modular and fixed switches and can support all deployment models including access, aggregation, and core switching. The Cisco Catalyst 9000 series offers switches with the right price/performance to connect workers and things in venues from small businesses and branches to the largest enterprises. Catalyst 9000 Series products can be configured to support any combination of onsite deployments, private and public clouds, and hybrid networks. Modern network management platforms and cutting-edge security features reduce cost of ownership by saving time and safeguarding critical IT assets. Cisco's 9000X series of switches offer converged switching/routing, introducing the first combination of 400G QSFP-DD ports along with full multigigabit and Power-over-Ethernet ports.

With twice the backplane stacking bandwidth at about half the cost of the legacy Cisco Catalyst 2960-X and 2960-XR switches they are intended to replace, Catalyst 9200 Series switches are a natural network upgrade for small branch offices and midsize campus deployments. The 9200 product line includes models that support 24 or 48 ports with full Power over Ethernet; 80-160 Gbps backplane stacking bandwidth; streaming telemetry; and Layer 3 features such as Open Shortest Path First (OSPF) routing, EIGP distance routing protocol, IS-IS, and RIP. Catalyst 9200 Series switches run the Cisco IOS XE operating system.

The Catalyst 9200 offers 160-Gbps stacking throughput, features field-replaceable redundant power supplies and fans, and accepts add-in network modules with 4x1G, 4x1/10G, 2x25G, or 2x40G uplink. Cisco's Catalyst 9200 Enhanced VN model supports up to 32 Virtual Networks and delivers 160-Gbps backplane stacking capacity. The Catalyst 9200L delivers 80-Gbps backplane stacking performance. Both the Catalyst 9200L multigigabit and the Catalyst 9200 multigigabit offer wireless bandwidth tuning with 8 or 12 multigigabit Ethernet ports as fast as 10G.

Catalyst 9300 Series switches are fixed, stackable devices for ultra-high-density access switching. Key capabilities provided with models in the Catalyst 9300 product line include 1T stacking bandwidth, stackable SFP fiber, up to 448 mGig Ethernet ports and 288 ports of 90W UPOE+ with an 8-device stack, end-to-end IPsec tunnel with AES-256 Encryption and speeds as high as 100G, redundant fans and power supplies, plus data stack cables common across the complete Catalyst 9300 product line.

Based on the Cisco IOS XE operating system, switches in the Catalyst 9300 product line support automated device provisioning, API-driven configuration, granular visibility for near realtime monitoring, and seamless software updates and patching. Security capabilities include Encrypted Traffic Analytics (ETA) as well as AES-256 MACsec and IPSec encryption, plus Cisco Trust Anchor Technologies with Image signing. Cloud cybersecurity is strengthened because Catalyst 9300 switches can host Cisco's Umbrella agent directly. This makes it possible for organizations to implement their DNS policies at user or group level to prevent BYOD or IoT clients from visiting dangerous websites.

The value-priced 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 uses fixed instead of modular uplink hardware for 4 1G, 4 10G, or 2 40G uplink ports. The Cisco Catalyst 9300 switch features 480G of stacking capacity and supports 48 100M/1G/2.5G/5Gbps Ethernet ports, 24 100M/1G/2.5G/5G/10Gbps ports, or 48 1G SFP ports. Modular uplink performance available are 1G, 10G, 25G, or 40G. The top-of-the-line Cisco Catalyst 9300X switch delivers up to 1Tbps backplane stacking capacity and offers 48 10G port density. The 9300X accepts uplink modules with dual-rate 100G/40G, multirate 25G/10G/1G, or mGig. Cisco 90W UPOE+ supports IoT-intensive applications. Cisco offers hardware to support 100G IPsec.

Cisco's Catalyst 9400 Series appliances are modular switches based on the Cisco IOS XE operating system and designed for medium-size and large campus access deployments. Delivering twice the throughput and over four times the chassis bandwidth as the Catalyst 6500 it is built to replace, Cisco's Catalyst 9400 family brings switch capability into the modern age of networking impelled by security, mobility, IoT, and cloud.

Catalyst 9400 appliances are available with 4-slot, 7-slot, and 10-slot chassis. Two of the slots on each chassis are dedicated to high-availability supervisor cards, making 2, 5, or 8 slots available for line cards. Max bandwidth scalability for each line-card slot is 480 Gbps. Switching capacity can reach 1.44 Tbps and forwarding performance on Supervisor Module is as high as 9 Tbps for the 10-slot chassis. All Catalyst 9400 appliances offer 90W UPOE+ on every access port, protected network segmentation with Software-Defined Access (SD-Access) and N+N/N+1 power redundancy for high availability. Cisco's Catalyst 9400 4-slot switch supports 96 10/100/1000 Ethernet 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 Ethernet SFP+ uplinks.

The Catalyst 9500 family includes fixed core and edge services switches designed for the enterprise campus. Catalyst 9500 switches are powered by the Cisco IOS XE operating system and the the family incorporates the first network technology to deliver switching speeds higher than 25 Tbps.

Cisco's Catalyst 9500 appliances deliver as high as 6.4 Tbps switching capacity with forwarding throughput as high as 2 Billion Packet per Second. Catalyst 9500 appliances can support as many as 32 nonblocking 100 GB QSFP28 ports, 32 nonblocking 40 Gigabit QSFP+ ports, 48 nonblocking 25 Gigabit SFP28 ports, or 48 nonblocking 10G ports. You can deploy Multichassis EtherChannel across StackWise-Virtual members for high resiliency.

Catalyst 9500X appliances support up to 25.6 Tbps switching capacity with 2 Billion Packet per Second 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 product line also includes hardware capability for line-rate 256-bit 802.1AE Media Access Control Security (MACsec) and WAN-MACsec1 data encryption.

Cisco's Catalyst 9600 Series switches are modular core and distribution switches intended for the enterprise campus. The 6-slot 9600 Series chassis loaded with a Catalyst 9600X Series Supervisor delivers switching performance up to 25.6 Tbps and can contain as many as 256 nonblocking 10/25/50 Gigabit Ethernet ports, 96 nonblocking 40/100G Gigabit ports, or 8 nonblocking 200/400 Gigabit 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 combine a selection of line cards for core and aggregation deployments. The Catalyst 9600 chassis has a passive backplane, so you can replace fan tray, power supplies, and line cards without disrupting operation.

Legacy Catalyst Models Still Supported by Progent's Consultants
Progent's Cisco CCIE-certified consultants have extensive backgrounds providing remote and on-premises consulting and troubleshooting services for older Catalyst switches which have reached End of Life. These outdated switches often are more expensive to manage and support than current models, provide less capacity and functionality, and in some situations can subject organizations to regulatory compliance and even liability risks. Progent can help your business to support and troubleshoot these legacy switches and can in addition help you to design and implement non-disruptive migrations to current models within the Catalyst family or to solutions from Cisco's Nexus line of network switches which take advantage of Catalyst design experience.

Catalyst Express 500 and 520 Switches
Cisco's Catalyst Express 500 and 520 line of fixed-configuration switches are designed for businesses with as many as 250 workers and deliver the reliability, protection, expandability, and features small companies need at an economical cost. Power over Ethernet support makes it simple to install network devices like wireless access points and closed-circuit cameras.

Versions of the Cisco Catalyst Express 500 and 520 managed switches support up to 24 10/100/1000BASE-T ports plus the option of backup power with auto fail-over for extra reliability. Interoperation with Cisco access points helps businesses to build a wireless LAN environment rapidly and effectively. The Catalyst Express 500 and 520 platform provides solid security against malicious attacks With Cisco's Self-Defending Network strategy and Cisco Clean Access agents. Catalyst 2940 Switch
Catalyst 2900 non-modular, managed Ethernet switches provide basic small-group connectivity for small to medium-size organizations. These wire-rate desktop appliances offer Cisco IOS Software features for basic data, video, and voice services at the network edge. The Cisco 2940 line of switches are compact, entry-level switches with 8 Fast Ethernet ports plus a single built-in Fast or Gbit uplink. They can be deployed outside the wiring cabinet in space-constrained office spaces like on a user's desk or in a classroom.

Catalyst 2960-S Series Switch
The Cisco Catalyst 2960-S Series are fixed-configuration switches designed for small companies and branches. Current versions incorporate either 24 or 48 1Gb Ethernet ports, four 1-Gigabit or two 10GE uplinks, and deliver throughput of 176 Gbps. Cisco's FlexStack technology permits as many as four Catalyst 2960-S chassis to be combined in a stack to act as a single switching unit that offers 40 Gbps of stacking performance and that cuts operational expense with single-switch configuration. IPv6 First Hop Security (FHS) technology guards networks against address interception and other threats.

Cisco Catalyst 3560 Switches
The Catalyst 3560 Series is a line of non-modular switches that features IEEE 802.3af and PoE functionality in Fast Ethernet and 10/100/1000 implementations. Cisco's Catalyst 3560 is an ideal access-layer switch for small enterprise network access or local-offices, offering both Gigabit and Power over Ethernet configurations for high efficiency while facilitating the deployment of key technology such a VoIP, Wi-Fi, video surveillance, and remote video kiosks. Customers can activate network-wide intelligent features including quality of service (QoS), rate management, access control lists (ACLs), multicast administration, and broadband IP routing with the simplicity of traditional LAN switching.

The Catalyst 3560 family switch is equipped with a robust array of capabilities that permit network expandability and higher resilience via IP routing plus a full suite of Spanning Tree Protocol enhancements designed to maximize availability in a Layer 2 network. Enhancements to the standard STP Protocol, such as PVST+, and Port Fast, combined with enhancements such as Flex Links interfaces, contribute to network uptime. PVST+ supports Layer 2 load balancing on backup connections to efficiently use the extra bandwidth associated with a redundant design.

Important technologies such as Open Shortest Path First, Enhanced Interior Gateway Routing Protocol (EIGRP), BGP, static routing, and PBR increase system capacity; Protocol Independent Multicast increases the efficiency of system resource use; and Virtual Route Forwarding Lite protects data.

Catalyst 3750 Series Switches
For mid-size businesses and corporate branch offices, Cisco's Catalyst 3750 Series switch simplifies integration of unified technologies and accommodates evolving business environments by providing configuration versatility, support for unified network traffic, and management-free configuration of intelligent network functions. In addition, the Cisco Catalyst 3750 Series is engineered for high-density Gigabit Ethernet environments and incorporates a diverse selection of switches that address the connectivity, aggregation, and backbone-interface requirements of small or midsized deployments.

The Cisco Catalyst 3750 Series includes either the IP Base or the Services image. The IP Base image functions include industry-leading quality of service (QoS), rate-limiting, access control lists (ACLs), and basic static and Routing Information Protocol (RIP) routing support. The IP Services image offers a richer selection of enterprise-class functions, including advanced hardware-based IP unicast/multicast routing.

Cisco StackWise technology is an architecture designed for Gigabit Ethernet. Cisco StackWise is designed to respond to installs, deletions, and relocations while providing consistent operation. Cisco StackWise technology combines up to 9 separate switches into a single functional unit, utilizing custom stack-interface cables and utilities. The individual switches can be any mix of Cisco's Catalyst 3750 Series and Cisco's Catalyst 3750-E Series. The stack behaves as a single switching unit that is directed by a control switch, chosen from one of the stack of switches. The control switch intelligently creates and keeps current all the switching and optional routing tables. A working stack can accept new members or delete existing members with no operational interruption.

Catalyst 2960 Swiches and 3560-CX Switches
Cisco's Catalyst 2960-CX is a fixed-configuration switch that is low-profile, fanless, power efficient, and allows flexible mounting options. The switch has eight 10/100/1000 Ethernet ports and two Gigabit Ethernet uplinks and optionally provides Power over Ethernet. Cisco's Catalyst 3560-CX appliance is a fixed-configuration switch housed in a sleek, quiet and low-power unit that can be placed almost anywhere convenient. Versions are offered with 8 or 12 10/100/1000 Ethernet ports or with six 10/100/1000 Ethernet ports plus 2 multigigabit Ethernet ports. Up to four uplinks are offered, and Power over Ethernet (PoE) is also an option.

Cisco's Catalyst 2960-L line includes value-priced fixed-port switches intended for small offices, retail venues, and other environments where space is limited. Catalyst 2900-L low-profile switches have 8 to 48 Gigabit Ethernet ports and either 2 or 4 Small Form-Factor Pluggable (SFP) uplink ports. Power over Ethernet support saves space and fan-free design for the 8- versions does away with noise. RJ-45 interfaces support 10BASE-T, 100BASE-TX, 1000BASE-T and 1000BASE-T SFP-based ports.

Cisco Catalyst 2960-X and 2960-XR switches improve on the 2690-S family of switches by delivering switching capacity as high as 216 Gbps and providing Cisco's FlexStack-Plus stacking technology by means of a hot-swappable plug-in that can combine 8 Catalyst switches in a FlexStack Plus stack capable of 80 Gbps of stacking throughput. Cisco Catalyst 2900 Series switches also support NetFlow-Lite for flow-based traffic monitoring. Cisco's Catalyst 2960-XR Series switch is capable of Layer 3 dynamic routing, offering the simplicity of using a single device for L2 and L3 routing.

Catalyst 3650 and 3850 Switches
Cisco Catalyst 3650 and Catalyst 3850 series switches are fixed, stackable access switches powered by Cisco's IOS XE OS and incorporating full wireless controller capability that allows you to control wired and wireless infrastructure on a one device powered by one OS. Cisco has models with 24 or 48 built-in 10/100/1000 Ethernet ports with PoE plus, four 1-Gigabit or four 10GE uplinks, and support for as many as nine Catalyst switches per FlexStack stack. All versions offer modular Quality of Service, fast failover for maximum availability, support in software for IPv4 and IPv6 routing, multicast routing, and enhanced security.

Since wireless data traffic is present at the Catalyst 3000 Series switch, it is possible to spot and assign priorities to wireless traffic by means of Cisco's Flexible NetFlow (FNF) technology and advanced QoS features for an improved user environment and faster problem mediation. Multigigabit Ethernet switching supports the high-bandwidth defined by the latest 802.11ac Wave 2 Wi-Fi specification on existing cabling solutions. (For information about Progent's consulting services for Cisco's 802.11ac Aironet wireless technology, and Meraki cloud-managed Wi-Fi access points, refer to Planning and Deployment Support for Cisco Wireless Technology.)

The Cisco Catalyst 3650 delivers stacking bandwidth of 160 Gbps and supports up to 25 wireless APs and 1000 wireless users on each switch. The Catalyst 3850 switch delivers stacking bandwidth of 480 Gbps and can control as many as 50 wireless access points and 2000 wireless clients per switch. Cisco Catalyst 3850 SFP Fiber Switches have 12 or 24 1G fiber connections at line rate, providing far reaching connections, advanced security, and a consistent wired/wireless user experience.

Catalyst 4500-E and Cisco Catalyst 4500-X Series Switches
Cisco's Catalyst 4500-E and and Catalyst 4500-X Series switches are designed for access and distribution environments where physical space for networking equipment is at a premium. Running Cisco's IOS XE software, both the 4500-E and Catalyst 4500-X families simplify network virtualization by supporting Cisco's Easy Virtual Network and Virtual Switching System (VSS) technologies. Virtualization makes it possible to divide a hardware network into a number of virtual networks whose data planes and control planes are logically segregated. This provides the economy, protection, recoverability, and simplified management required for Cloud computing or other situations where a single infrastructure is shared by software and services that need to operate in complete isolation from each other. Easy Virtual Network simplifies the task of creating VNs and scales to 32 VNs per switch. Easy Virtual Network utilizes the capabilities of Multi-virtual routing and forwarding (VRF) and provides additional features such as VNET Trunks and a simple technique for duplicating replicating routes connecting VNs. VSS technology makes it possible to set up Catalyst 4500-E and Catalyst 4500-X Series switches to create non-stop virtual networks with advanced load balancing.

Catalyst 4500-E Series Switches
Cisco's Supervisor Engine for for the Catalyst 4500-E modular switch includes a built-in wireless network controller that works with Cisco's Unified Access solution for wired/wireless convergence. this is the initial Cisco Catalyst supervisor to permit wired as well as wireless services on one platform based on Cisco's IOS XE. Technologies included are Cisco's FNF solution for traffic analytics across both wired and wireless networks, TrustSec/SGT2 wired/wireless security, identical Quality of Service for wired and wireless clients, plus the extension of Nonstop Forwarding with Stateful Switchover (NSF/SSO) to cover Wi-Fi traffic for world-quality high availability.

Offered in chassis that have from three to 10 plug-in slots, Cisco Catalyst 4500-E switches with Supervisor 8-E can support up to 384 1-Gigabit Ethernet access ports, up to 192 1GE fiber fiber connections, 96 10-Gigabit Ethernet fiber connections, and eight 10GE uplinks. The Catalyst 4500-E Supervisor Engine 8-E delivers up to 928 Gbps of wired access per system and as much as 20 Gbps of wireless termination capacity. 50 Wi-Fi APs and 2000 wireless clients can be supported per chassis, and up to 250 access points and 4000 wireless clients can be managed in a multi-switch deployment without requiring a standalone wireless network controller.

Cisco Catalyst 4500-X Series Switches
Catalyst 4500-X switches are fixed 10-Gigabit Ethernet aggregation switches that provide up to 800 Gbps of core switching capacity per chassis. The Catalyst 4500-X switch supports up to 32 10-Gigabit Ethernet ports on the baseboard and eight more 10-Gigabit Ethernet ports on the expansion module for a maximum of 40 non-blocking 10GE connections. Eight 10GE uplink ports are also available with a separate module. In addition to offering non-stop performance and easy manageability, Cisco's VSS solution on Catalyst 4500-X switches offers higher system performance of as much as 1.6 Tbps by activating all available bandwidth between redundant Catalyst 4500-X Series switches. Additional features include FNF technology for application visibility, TrustSec security, and fast, hardware-based IPv6 forwarding.

Catalyst 6500 and Catalyst 6800 Series Switches
Catalyst 6500 and Cisco Catalyst 6800 switches are enterprise campus core switches that incorporate the proven DNA of the Cisco Catalyst 6500 family of products, which were introduced over a dozen years ago and have been continually enhanced ever since. Cisco Catalyst 6500 Series and Cisco Catalyst 6800 switches offer identical features and operational consistency, and the modular Cisco Catalyst 6807-XL switch accepts the Catalyst 6500 Supervisor Engine 2T and the associated portfolio of compatible line cards and modules. This cross compatibility and program of continual enhancement preserves your infrastructure expenditures and permits you to update your network backbone with minimal service interruption or management staff retraining.

Shared features of Cisco Catalyst 6500 and Cisco Catalyst 6800 modular switches equipped with Cisco's Supervisor Engine 2T include the Cisco Identity Services Engine (ISE) for simple, centralized administration to put in place unvarying policy throughout a distributed network, Virtual Switching System capability for maximum uptime via multi-level failover, and Cisco's LISP protocol to support client roaming and device mobility and to simplify network virtualization and transition to IPv6. Other virtualization features to partition distinct client groups and support the unique security/compliance and QoS policy requirements of each group include L2/L3 VPN, full MPLS, EVN, VRF-aware applications for NAT NetFlow, IPv6 over IPv4 GRE Tunnels, and L2 extensions with virtual private LAN services (VPLS). For converged wired/wireless environments, the WiSM2 controller Catalyst 6500 Series and Catalyst 6800 modular switches can manage 1000 wireless access points and 15,000 wireless clients.

Cisco Catalyst 6500-E Switches
The Cisco Catalyst 6500-E family of modular switches are designed for aggregation and campus core networks that need world-class availability and high concentrations of 1 Gigabit Ethernet, 1 Gigabit Ethernet fiber, or 10 and 40 Gigabit Ethernet access ports. Models have three to 13 slots and work with a broad selection of modules. Integrated service modules support wireless, traffic analysis, and data protection. Just E-Series models of Cisco's extensive family of 6500 switches are compatible with the Supervisor Engine 2T.

The entry-level Catalyst 6503-E switch has a 4 rack unit (4RU) form factor, includes 3 slots, and offers up to 180 Gbps of switching performance per slot. The Cisco Catalyst 6503-E can support up to 97 1-Gigabit Ethernet ports, up to 99 1GE fiber connections, up to 34 10GE ports, and 8 40-Gigabit Ethernet ports.

The high-end Cisco Catalyst 6513-E switch has a 19 rack unit, 13-slot form factor and offers as much as 180 Gbps of bandwidth on each slot, providing a total system capacity of up to 4 Tbps. A VSS configured system can handle 8 Tbps of capacity. The Cisco Catalyst 6513-E Series switch supports a maximum of 529 10/100/1000 Ethernet connections, up to 534 Gigabit Ethernet fiber connections, 180 10GE access ports, and up to 44 40-Gigabit Ethernet access ports.

Catalyst 6800 Switches
Cisco's Catalyst 6800 Series switches are campus core switches intended to provide best-of-breed 10/40/100 Gigabit Ethernet services. The Cisco Catalyst 6880-X switch is a fixed, small form factor switch for Ethernet aggregation intended for small or medium-size enterprise campus backbones. The 6880-X supports as much as 2 Tbps bandwidth and includes four slots for port cards. The top port density on one chassis is 80 10/100/1000 Ethernet ports or 10-Gigabit Ethernet access ports or as many as 20 40-Gigabit Ethernet connections. With VSS, a two-chassis system can provide 4 Tbps switching performance and support as many as 158 1 Gigabit Ethernet connections or 10-Gigabit Ethernet access ports or up to 20 40-Gigabit Ethernet ports.

The modular Catalyst 6807-XL switch comes in a 10 RU form factor with 7 slots and accepts standard Supervisor Engine 2T cards and service modules. (Two slots are for the Supervisor Engine and five are for expansion modules.) The Catalyst 6807-XL switch offers as much as 880 Gbps of switching performance on each slot and a total of 11.4 Tbps of switching bandwidth while handling up to 240 10/100/1000 Ethernet access ports or 1GE fiber ports, up to 80 10GE access ports or 20 40GE access ports. an 6807-XL system with VSS can handle 22.8 Tbps of switching throughput, 480 10/100/1000 Ethernet ports or Gigabit Ethernet fiber connections, 160 10-Gigabit Ethernet connections or 40 40GE access ports.

How Progent Can Help Your Business with Catalyst Switches
Progent can provide the online or onsite services of CCIE-certified network consultants who have extensive backgrounds providing Catalyst switch technology support for small and medium sized organizations, branches, enterprises, data centers, Cloud environments, and SPs. Progent's areas of expertise include Catalyst and Nexus lines of smart switches and Cisco's IOS, IOS-XR and NX-OS control software. Services offered by Progent for Catalyst switches include proof-of-concept testing, system analysis and monitoring, network architecture design, upgrades and project management, virtualization, wired and wireless unification, network management, performance optimization, problem mitigation, business continuity planning, and data security assessment and remediation.

Progent has deep expertise with open standards as well as with Cisco-owned technologies related to switching and routing including Border Gateway Protocol, MPLS traffic engineering, PIM, VPNs, ISIS, VLANs, Cisco FabricPath, VPC, OTV, VRRP, Open Shortest Path First (OSPF), VSS, and Locator/ID Separation Protocol (LISP). Progent's network specialists also have deep knowledge of important technologies such as TCP/IP protocols, IPv4/IPv6, EIGRP, Routing Information Protocol (RIP), and Internet Group Management Protocol. Progent's CISSP-ISSAP certified network security and compliance consultants can show you how to create an enterprise-wide security strategy and deploy Catalyst switches so they provide maximum enforcement to your network security posture.

If you need ultra high density or extremely low latency Cisco switches for a world-class data center, Progent can assist you to analyze, plan, and manage a transition to Nexus family of switches. To find out about Progent's consulting capabilities for Cisco's Nexus switches, see Nexus Switch consulting and support services available from Progent. Progent can also help you to connect Catalyst data center switches with Cisco Meraki aggregation switches. (See Cisco Meraki switch integration consultants.)

For more details concerning Progent's professional assistance for Cisco technology, pick a topic:

• Introduction to Progent's Cisco Consulting Services
• Fast and Affordable Online Support from a Cisco CCIE Consultant
• Cisco Firepower Firewalls: Configuration and Management Services
• Cisco ASA 5500-X Firewall with Firepower Services: Consulting and Troubleshooting Services
• Cisco ASA 5500 Firewall Management Expertise
• PIX Series Firewall Upgrade. Migration Services
• Cisco Routers Configuration and Troubleshooting Support
• Cisco Wireless Engineering Expertise
• Cisco Aironet Access Points Deployment Help
• Cisco Small Business 100, 300 and 500 WiFi Access Points System Design Expertise
• Cisco Catalyst 802.11ax Wi-Fi 6/6E Wireless Access Points Solution Design, Deployment and Troubleshooting Services
• Cisco Wireless Controllers Consulting
• Meraki Access Points Deployment Services
• Cisco Unified Communications Manager (CUCM or Unified CM) and Cisco CallManager Consulting and Technical Support
• Cisco Voice over IP Phones and IP Video Desktop Phones Consulting and Wireless VoIP Phone Integration
• Cisco Jabber Migration and Support Services
• Cisco Nexus Switches Support and Troubleshooting Expertise
• Cisco Meraki MS Switches Consulting and Support Expertise
• Cisco Security and VPN Setup and Troubleshooting Services
• SIP and CUBE Integration Solutions: SIP PSTN Trunks and CUBE Integration Expertise
• Design Expertise for Cisco-powered Data Centers
• Network Optimization Services for ISPs
• Remote Network Management Strategies for Cisco-based Environments

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