Cisco Network Consulting

Cisco's Catalyst family of modular and fixed-configuration switches provides speed and intelligence at the access, distribution, and core areas of converged voice, video, and data networks for organizations that range in size from small businesses and branches to multi-campus enterprises and service providers. Progent's Cisco-certified CCIE consultants can provide remote and onsite expertise with Catalyst switches to assist you to plan a cost-effective infrastructure that meets your unique business requirements, set up proof-of-concept testing, deploy Catalyst switches, establish and validate a sound security strategy, automate network management and monitoring, provide troubleshooting and support services, maximize switch capacity, and set up Catalyst's high-availability (HA) technology to achieve near-zero downtime.

Progent can assist you to maintain and troubleshoot your legacy Catalyst switches or upgrade seamlessly to up-to-date models of Catalyst switches following industry best practices to make sure that you get the highest return from your investment in your IT infrastructure.

The demand for intelligent, fast switching is driven by a confluence of fairly recent networking trends whose net effect is a virtual tsunami of data:

• Cloud and Internet of Things (IoT) networking and an associated requirement for massive virtualization
• The proliferation of BYOD computing
• Bandwidth-intensive HD video applications
• Social media for business
• The rise of Big Data in data analytics
• Ever more advanced cyberattacks like ransomware

Cisco's latest lineup of Catalyst switches are ideal for the distribution/core levels of campus environments where office workers must be accommodated by providing predictable high speed, secure access control, careful group isolation, application intelligence, and wired and wireless convergence. Catalyst series switches are designed to meet the need for performance and intelligence with capabilities that include high-density 10, 40, and 100 Gigabit Ethernet services, switching throughput more than 25T for each appliance, a comprehensive collection of technologies such as EVN to simplify the deployment of VLANs, VSS technology for stateful interchassis failover with instant virtual switch recovery and "five nines" (99.999%) uptime, IPv4 and IPv6 support, Application Visibility and Control to optimize system utilization, and advanced QoS capabilities for critical traffic control.

Catalyst switches allow organizations of all sizes to benefit from incorporating smart switching services into their network infrastructure, deploying an ecosystem that can meet real-time needs, expand to accommodate future capacity demands, guard vital information, and differentiate and manage processes to optimize network productivity.

Catalyst 1000 Series Fixed Ethernet Switches
Cisco's Catalyst 1000 access switches are compact, fixed switches intended for smaller businesses and branches with up to 250 users and with minimal in-house IT support. Cisco's Catalyst 1000 Series includes fanless versions for quiet operation within an office environment. Mounting alternatives include desktop, wall mount, rack mount, and DIN. Created as a simple replacement for Cisco Catalyst 2960-L/2960-Plus deployments, the Catalyst 1000 line includes models with 8 to 48G Ethernet ports or 24 to 48 Fast Ethernet 10/100M Mbps ports.

Catalyst 1000 set up and management are easy via a web interface or CLI, cybersecurity is enterprise-grade, and Power over Ethernet capability with a dynamically distributed power budget of 740W allows a broad range of Internet of Things (IoT) implementations. Up to eight Catalyst 1000 Gbit Ethernet Series switches can be controlled at once with single IP. Catalyst 1000 models are nonblocking line-rate devices, and all are based on Cisco's venerable IOS Software. QoS features include egress queues on each port as well as priority queuing to provide wire-speed throughput for data, IP voice, and video traffic. Catalyst 1000 switches also feature Shaped Round Robin (SRR) scheduling and Weighted Tail Drop congestion avoidance.

Cisco Catalyst 9000 Fixed and Modular Managed Switches
The Catalyst 9000 family of switches offers modular and fixed units and can support all deployment models including access, distribution, and core switching. The Catalyst 9000 family offers devices with the right value proposition to connect people and things in scenarios ranging from small businesses and branch offices to the largest enterprises. Catalyst 9000 Series switches can be set up to support any mix of local facilities, private and public clouds, and hybrid network models. Unified network management tools and cutting-edge cybersecurity features reduce cost of ownership by saving time and protecting vital network assets. Cisco's 9000X series of switches offer converged switching/routing, delivering the first mix of 400G QSFP-DD ports along with full multigigabit Ethernet and PoE 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, Catalyst 9200 Series switches are a compelling infrastructure update for small branches and midsize campus environments. The Catalyst 9200 family includes switches that support 24 or 48 ports with full Power over Ethernet; 80-160 Gbps backplane stacking bandwidth; and Layer 3 features that include Open Shortest Path First (OSPF) routing, EIGP distance routing protocol, IS-IS link-state protocol, and routed access. Cisco Catalyst 9200 switches are powered by Cisco IOS XE.

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

Cisco's Catalyst 9300 Series switches are fixed, stackable units for high-density access switching. Key features provided with models in the Catalyst 9300 portfolio include 1T stacking capacity, stackable high-speed fiber, up to 448 multigigabit Ethernet ports and 288 ports of 90W UPOE+ with an 8-device stack, line rate IPsec with AES-256 with MACsec 256-bit encryption and speeds up to 100G, high-availability redundant fans and power supplies, plus data stack cables compatible across the entire Catalyst 9300 product line.

Powered by the Cisco IOS XE operating system, devices in the Catalyst 9300 product line support automated provisioning, API-driven configuration, high-granularity visibility for near realtime monitoring, and seamless software patching. Advanced security features include Encrypted Traffic Analytics (ETA) as well as AES-256 MACsec and IPSec encryption, and Cisco Trust Anchor Technologies with Image signing. Cloud security is enhanced because Catalyst 9300 switches are able to host the Cisco Umbrella agent directly. This makes it possible for businesses to design their DNS policies at a granular user or group level to block BYOD or IoT clients from visiting dangerous websites.

The value-priced Cisco Catalyst 9300L switch features as much as 320G stacking capacity and supports 12 100M/1G/2.5G/5G/10G ports and 36 10M/100M/1G ports. The 9300L utilizes fixed rather than modular uplink components for 4 1G, 4 10G, or 2 40G ports. The Cisco Catalyst 9300 switch offers 480G of stacking performance and can provide 48 100M/1G/2.5G/5Gbps ports, 24 100M/1G/2.5G/5G/10Gbps ports, or 48 1G SFP ports. Modular uplink speeds supported are 1G, 10G, 25G, or 40G. The high-end Cisco Catalyst 9300X switch provides up to 1Tbps backplane stacking capacity and offers 48 10G Ethernet ports. The 9300X supports modular uplinks with dual-rate 100G/40G, multirate 25G/10G/1G, or multigigabit. Cisco 90W UPOE+ supports IoT-intensive applications. Hardware is available 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 performance and more than four times the chassis bandwidth as the Catalyst 6500 line it is built to replace, the Catalyst 9400 family ushers switch technology into the modern era of connectivity driven 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 the chassis are dedicated to high-availability supervisor cards, leaving 2, 5, or 8 slots open for line cards. Max bandwidth scalability for each line-card slot is 480G. Switching performance can achieve 1.44 Tbps and forwarding rate on Supervisor Module can reach 9 Tbps for the 10-slot chassis. All Catalyst 9400 models offer 90W UPOE+ on every access port, protected network segmentation with 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 supports 240 ports, and the Catalyst 9400 10-slot supports 384 ports. All Catalyst 9400 appliances can provide 2 non-blocking 40G QSFP uplinks and 8 non-blocking 10 Gigabit SFP+ uplinks.

Cisco's Catalyst 9500 product line includes fixed core and edge services switches designed for the enterprise campus. Catalyst 9500 models are based on Cisco IOS XE and the the family includes the first infrastructure technology to deliver switching rates higher than 25 Terabits per second.

Cisco's Catalyst 9500 appliances provide up to 6.4 Terabits per second switching capacity with forwarding speed up to 2 Bpps. Catalyst 9500 switches 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 (MEC) across Cisco StackWise-Virtual members for high resiliency.

Catalyst 9500X products can provide as high as 25.6 Terabits per second switching capacity with 2 Bpps forwarding capacity. Catalyst 9500X devices support up to 28 nonblocking 40/100 GB QSFP28 optical ports or 8 nonblocking 40/100/200/400 G 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 for the enterprise campus. The 6-slot 9600 Series chassis using a Catalyst 9600X Series Supervisor has switching performance up to 25.6 Tbps and can contain as many as 256 nonblocking 10/25/50 G Ethernet ports, 96 nonblocking 40/100G Gigabit ports, or 8 nonblocking 200/400 G QSFP-DD 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 variety of line cards for core and aggregation environments. The chassis has a passive backplane, making it possible to change out fan tray, power supplies, and line cards without disruption.

End-of-Life Catalyst Switches Still Supported by Progent
Progent's Cisco CCIE-certified consultants have extensive backgrounds delivering remote and on-premises support expertise for early-generation Catalyst switches which have reached End of Life. These outdated Catalyst switches usually cost more to operate and support than current models, provide less performance and fewer features, and in many situations may subject businesses to regulatory and liability issues. Progent are available to help your business to support and troubleshoot these legacy switches and can in addition assist you to plan and execute seamless migrations to current products from 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 line of managed Ethernet switches are intended for companies with up to 250 employees and deliver the dependability, security, extensibility, and features small companies require at an economical cost. Power over Ethernet support makes it simple to install network appliances like VoIP phones and IP TV cameras.

Versions of the Catalyst Express 500 managed switches support up to 24 10/100/1000BT Ethernet ports plus the option of redundant power with auto fail-over for additional dependability. Interoperation with Cisco access points helps businesses to set up a wireless LAN network quickly and effectively. The Cisco Catalyst Express 500 and 520 family provides solid security against malicious attacks thanks to Cisco's Self-Defending Network strategy and Cisco Clean Access solutions. Catalyst 2940 Switch
Cisco Catalyst 2900 Series non-modular, managed 10/100 switches offer basic small-group connectivity for small to medium-size businesses. These wire-speed desktop switches offer IOS Software features for basic data, video, and voice control at the edge of the network. The Catalyst 2940 family of switches are small-footprint, entry-level switches with 8 Ethernet ports and a single integrated Fast or Gbit Ethernet uplink. They can be deployed outside the wiring cabinet in space-constrained locations such as on or under a user's desk or in a classroom.

Cisco Catalyst 2960-S Switch
The Cisco Catalyst 2960-S Series are fixed switches intended for small companies and branch offices. Current models have 24 or 48 10/100/1000 Ethernet ports, four 1-Gigabit or two 10-GB Ethernet uplink connections, and provide switching capacity of 176 Gbps. Cisco's FlexStack feature allows as many as four Catalyst 2960-S chassis to be grouped in a FlexStack stack to perform as one switching unit that offers 40 Gbps of stacking performance and that reduces management expense because of one-switch setup. IPv6 First Hop Security capability protects networks against address interception and other threats.

Cisco Catalyst 3560 Family Switches
The Catalyst 3560 Series is a selection of fixed-configuration switches that features IEEE 802.3af and Power over Ethernet (PoE) capability in Fast Ethernet and Gigabit implementations. Cisco's Catalyst 3560 Series switch is an ideal Layer 2 switch for midsize business network access or satellite-office environments, offering both Gigabit and Power over Ethernet configurations for high productivity while streamlining the deployment of key applications such a IP telephony, wireless connectivity, video monitoring, and remote video kiosks. Customers can activate network-wide smart services such as quality of service, rate management, access control lists, multicast administration, and broadband IP routing with the ease of conventional LAN switching.

The Catalyst 3560 switch has a powerful array of capabilities that permit network scalability and higher availability via IP routing plus a full suite of Spanning Tree Protocol improvements designed to maximize throughput in a Layer 2 network. Improvements to the standard STP Protocol, such as Per-VLAN Spanning Tree Plus, Uplink Fast, and Port Fast, combined with innovations such as Flex Links Layer 2 interfaces, contribute to network efficiency. Per-VLAN Spanning Tree Plus (PVST+) allows for Layer 2 traffic sharing on backup links to efficiently use the extra bandwidth associated with a redundant design.

Efficient protocols including Open Shortest Path First (OPSF), Enhanced Interior Gateway Routing Protocol (EIGRP), Border Gateway Protocol, and Policy Based Routing improve system capacity; Protocol Independent Multicast (PIM) improves utilization of network resources; and Virtual Route Forwarding Lite (VRFLite) protects data.

Cisco Catalyst 3750 Family Switches
For mid-size businesses and corporate branches, Cisco's Catalyst 3750 switch simplifies deployment of converged technologies and accommodates evolving competitive needs by providing setup versatility, ability to manage converged network patterns, and automatic configuration of smart network services. In addition, the Cisco Catalyst 3750 Series is designed for high-volume Gigabit environments and incorporates a diverse selection of switches that address the connectivity, aggregation, and backbone-interface requirements of small or mid-size systems.

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

Cisco StackWise technology is an architecture optimized for Gigabit Ethernet. This technology is designed to react to installs, deletions, and redeployments while maintaining dependable performance. Cisco StackWise unites as many as 9 individual switches into a single logical device, utilizing special stack-interconnect cables and software. The individual switches can be any mix of Cisco's Catalyst 3750 Series switches and the Cisco Catalyst 3750-E Series switches. The stack operates as an individual switching device that is managed by a control switch, chosen from among the stack of switches. The control switch intelligently builds and keeps current all the switching and user-selected routing databases. A running stack can accommodate new members or remove existing devices with no operational discontinuity.

Catalyst 2960 Swiches and Catalyst 3560-CX Switches
Cisco's Catalyst 2960-CX is a fixed-configuration switch that is low-profile, fanless, low power, and allows a variety of mounting options. The switch incorporates eight 10/100/1000 Ethernet ports and two Gigabit Ethernet uplinks and optionally provides PoE+ power. Cisco's Catalyst 3560-CX is a fixed-configuration managed switch housed in a sleek, quiet and low-power unit that can be placed almost anywhere convenient. Versions are offered with 8 or 12 1-GE ports or with 6 1-GE ports and 2 multigigabit Ethernet ports. Up to four uplink ports are available, and Power over Ethernet (PoE) is also an option.

Cisco's Catalyst 2960-L line consists of entry-level fixed-configuration switches designed for branch offices, retail venues, and other environments where space is limited. These low-profile appliances have 8 to 48 Gigabit Ethernet ports and either 2 or 4 Small Form-Factor Pluggable uplink ports. PoE support saves space and fanless design for 16- and 24-port versions eliminates noise. RJ-45 interfaces support 10BASE-T, 100BASE-TX, 1000BASE-T and 1000BASE-T SFP-based ports.

Catalyst 2960-X and 2960-XR Series switches improve on the 2690-S family of switches by delivering switching capacity of 216 Gbps and supporting Cisco's FlexStack-Plus stacking technology via a live-swappable module that can combine 8 Catalyst switches in a FlexStack Plus stack capable of 80 Gbps of stacking throughput. Cisco Catalyst 2900 family switches also work with NetFlow-Lite for conserving forwarding data for analysis. The Catalyst 2960-XR Series switch is capable of L3 dynamic routing, offering the convenience of having a single switch for Layer 2 and Layer 3 routing.

Catalyst 3650 and Catalyst 3850 Series Switches
Cisco Catalyst 3650 and Catalyst 3850 series switches are fixed-configuration, stackable network access switches powered by Cisco's IOS XE operating system and featuring full wireless network controller capability that allows you to control wired and wireless infrastructure on a one platform powered by one OS. Cisco has models with either 24 or 48 1Gb Ethernet connections with Power over Ethernet plus (PoE+), four 1-Gigabit or four 10-Gigabit uplink ports, and support for up to 9 switches in a stack. All versions offer modular QoS, fast failover for high uptime, software support for IPv4/IPv6 routing, multicast routing, and advanced security.

Since wireless data traffic is present at the Catalyst 3000 Series switch, it is possible to spot and prioritize wireless traffic by means of Cisco's Flexible NetFlow (FNF) technology along with sophisticated Quality of Service features for an improved wireless user environment and quicker problem isolation. Fast Ethernet switching supports the high-bandwidth called for by the new 802.11ac Wave 2 Wi-Fi specification using currently in-place cabling solutions. (For information about Progent's consulting services for Cisco's 802.11ac Wi-Fi products, and Cisco's Meraki cloud-managed access points, visit Configuration and Troubleshooting Consulting Services for Cisco Wireless Technology.)

The Cisco Catalyst 3650 switch offers stacking performance of 160 Gbps and can control as many as 25 wireless access points and 1000 Wi-Fi users per switch or stack. The Cisco Catalyst 3850 switch offers stacking throughput as high as 480 Gbps and can control up to 50 Wi-Fi access points and 2000 wireless users on each switch. Catalyst 3850 SFP Fiber Switches incorporate 12 or 24 1G fiber data ports at line rate on every port, providing long distance connectivity, enhanced security, and an identical wired and wireless user experience.

Catalyst 4500-E Series 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 space for networking hardware is limited. Powered by Cisco's IOS XE operating system, both the Catalyst 4500-E and Catalyst 4500-X families facilitate network virtualization thanks to Cisco's EVN and VSS technologies. Virtualization makes it possible to segment a hardware network into multiple virtual networks (VNs) whose data and control planes are logically distinct. This provides the efficient utilization, security and compliance, resilience, and manageability required for Cloud environments or other situations where a common infrastructure is used by software and services that need to operate in total isolation from one another. Easy Virtual Network streamlines the process of deploying VNs and can be expanded to 32 VNs per switch. Easy Virtual Network utilizes the capabilities of Multi-virtual routing and forwarding and provides additional technologies including VNET Tags and a simple technique for duplicating replicating routes between virtual networks. Virtual Switching System makes it possible to set up Catalyst 4500-E and 4500-X Series switches to create zero-downtime VNs with advanced load balancing.

Cisco Catalyst 4500-E Switches
Cisco's Supervisor Engine 8-E for the Catalyst 4500-E modular switch includes an integrated wireless controller that works with Cisco's Unified Access solution for wired/wireless convergence. The Supervisor Engine 8-E is the first Catalyst supervisor to enable wired plus wireless services on a single switch based on IOS XE software. Features include Cisco's FNF solution for traffic analytics encompassing both wired and wireless networks, TrustSec wired and wireless data security, predictable Quality of Service for wired and wireless networks, and the extension of Nonstop Forwarding with Stateful Switchover to cover wireless data traffic for world-class high availability.

Offered in chassis that have from three to 10 slots, Catalyst 4500-E Series switches can handle as many as 384 10/100/1000 Ethernet access ports, 193 Gigabit Ethernet fiber fiber connections, 96 10-Gigabit Ethernet fiber ports, and eight 10-Gigabit Ethernet uplinks. The Catalyst 4500-E Supervisor Engine 8-E delivers as much as 928 Gbps of wired capacity per system and 20 Gbps of wireless termination performance. 50 wireless APs and 2000 Wi-Fi clients can be supported on each chassis, and up to 250 APs and 4000 clients can be supported in a two-switch deployment without requiring a separate wireless controller.

Cisco Catalyst 4500-X Switches
Cisco's Catalyst 4500-X switches are fixed 10GE aggregation platforms that provide as much as 800 Gbps of backplane switching capacity per chassis. The Catalyst 4500-X supports as many as 32 10GE ports on the baseboard and eight more 10-Gigabit Ethernet ports on the optional expansion module for a total of up to 40 10-Gigabit Ethernet ports. Eight 10-Gigabit Ethernet uplink ports can be added with a separate module. In addition to providing zero-downtime operation and easy management, Cisco's VSS solution on Catalyst 4500-X Series switches provides increased system performance of up to 1.6 Tbps by enabling all possible capacity across redundant Catalyst 4500-X switches. Additional features include Flexible NetFlow solution for capacity planning, Cisco TrustSec security, and fast, hardware-based IPv6 forwarding.

Catalyst 6500 and Catalyst 6800 Series Switches
Cisco Catalyst 6500 Series and Cisco Catalyst 6800 Series switches are campus backbone switches that incorporate the field-proven technology of the Cisco Catalyst 6500 line of switches, which first appeared over a dozen years ago and have been continually improved since then. Catalyst 6500 Series and Catalyst 6800 switches offer identical features and operation, and the modular Catalyst 6807-XL accepts the Catalyst 6500 Supervisor Engine 2T and its extensive portfolio of compatible line cards and modules. This cross compatibility and program of continual enhancement preserves your technology investment and allows you to upgrade your network backbone with little downtime or IT staff retraining.

Common features of Cisco Catalyst 6500 Series and Cisco Catalyst 6800 modular switches that have Cisco's Supervisor Engine 2T include Cisco's ISE technology for convenient, centralized administration to ensure consistent policy across a distributed environment, Virtual Switching System capability for 99.999% uptime via multi-level switchover, and Cisco's Campus Locator/ID Separation Protocol to facilitate client roaming and device mobility and to streamline virtualization and transition to IPv6. Additional virtual networking tools to segment specific user groups and support the unique security and Quality of Service policy requirements of each group include L2/L3 VPN, complete Multiprotocol Label Switching, EVN, VPN Routing and Forwarding-aware applications for Network Address Translation NetFlow, GRE for v4/v6, and L2 geographic extensions with virtual private LAN services. For converged wired and wireless networking, the Wireless Services Module 2 for Cisco Catalyst 6500 and Cisco Catalyst 6800 modular switches includes support for up to 1000 wireless APs and 15,000 wireless clients.

Catalyst 6500-E Series Switches
The Catalyst 6500-E line of modular switches are intended for distribution and enterprise backbone environments that require maximum uptime and high concentrations of 1 Gigabit Ethernet, 1 Gigabit Ethernet fiber, and/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 monitoring, and data protection. Just E-Series models of Cisco's broad family of Catalyst 6500 switches accept Cisco's Supervisor Engine 2T.

The value-priced Catalyst 6503-E has a 4 rack unit (4RU) chassis, holds 3 slots, and delivers up to 180 Gbps of switching bandwidth on each slot. The Catalyst 6503-E can support 97 1-Gigabit Ethernet connections, up to 99 1GE fiber connections, up to 34 10GE ports, and up to 8 40GE ports.

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

Cisco Catalyst 6800 Switches
Catalyst 6800 Series switches are programmable backbone platforms intended to provide optimal 10/40/100 Gigabit Ethernet services. The Catalyst 6880-X switch is a fixed, compact device for high-density Ethernet designed for small or midsize campus backbones. The 6880-X switch supports up to 2 Tbps capacity and has four slots for plug-in port cards. The top port density on one chassis is 80 10/100/1000 Ethernet access ports or 10-Gigabit Ethernet access ports or up to 20 40-Gigabit Ethernet connections. With VSS, a two-chassis system can deliver 4 Tbps capacity and support up to 158 1 Gigabit Ethernet access ports or 10-Gigabit Ethernet access ports or as many as 20 40GE ports.

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

Ways That Progent Can Assist You with Cisco Catalyst Series Switches
Progent can provide the remote or on-premises expertise of CCIE-certified network consultants who have extensive backgrounds providing Catalyst switch solutions for small and medium sized organizations, branches, enterprises, data centers, Cloud networks, and service providers. Progent's practice areas include Catalyst and Nexus lines of managed switches and Cisco's IOS and NX-OS control software. Services available from Progent for Catalyst switches include proof-of-concept testing, system analysis, network architecture design, upgrades and project management, network virtualization, wired and wireless unification, network management, performance optimization, problem mitigation, disaster recovery and business continuity planning, and information security testing and verification.

Progent's Cisco-certified consultants have broad knowledge of open standards and with Cisco-owned technologies related to switching and routing such as Border Gateway Protocol, MPLS traffic engineering, Protocol Independent Multicast, VPNs, Spanning-Tree Protocol, virtual LANs, FabricPath, VPC, OTV, Virtual Router Redundancy Protocol, OSPF, Virtual Switching System (VSS), and Locator/ID Separation Protocol (LISP). Progent's network experts also have experience with key networking technologies including 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 assist you to create a comprehensive security and compliance strategy and implement Cisco Catalyst switches so they provide maximum support for your security posture.

In case you need ultra high Ethernet density or sub-microsecond latency Cisco switches for a world-class data center, Progent can help your organization to analyze, plan, and carry out a transition to Cisco's Nexus switches. To find out about Progent's support capabilities for Nexus Series switches, see Nexus Switch consulting services available from Progent. Progent can also assist you to integrate Catalyst data center switches with Cisco Meraki distribution switches. (See Cisco Meraki switch integration consultants.)

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