Cisco Certified Network Consulting

Cisco's Catalyst family of modular and fixed switches provides performance and control at the access, distribution, and backbone areas of converged IP voice, video, and high bandwidth data networks for organizations that range from small businesses and branch offices to multi-campus enterprises and service providers. Progent's Cisco-certified consultants offer online and on-premises expertise with Catalyst family switches to help you to design a cost-effective infrastructure that addresses your specific business requirements, configure proof-of-concept testing systems, install Catalyst switches, establish and validate a sound security and compliance strategy, automate network management and monitoring, deliver troubleshooting and maintenance services, optimize switch performance, and configure Catalyst's high-availability (HA) technology to achieve near-zero downtime.

Progent can assist you to manage and repair your legacy Catalyst switches or migrate smoothly to current versions of Catalyst switches adhering to industry best practices to ensure that you get the highest return from your investment in your IT infrastructure.

The need for intelligent, high-performance switching is driven by a combination of fairly recent computing patterns whose net impact is a cyber tsunami of traffic:

• Cloud and IoT networking and an associated reliance on intensive network virtualization
• The pervasiveness of BYOD computing
• Bandwidth-intensive rich media applications
• Social business technologies
• The rise of Big Data in data analytics
• Ever more advanced threats like ransomware

Cisco's latest lineup of Catalyst switches are designed for the distribution and core layers layers of campus environments where office employees must be supported with predictable high speed, strict access management, careful group isolation, application awareness, and wired and wireless convergence. Catalyst series switches address the demand for speed and intelligence with features that include high-density 10G/40G/100G support, switching throughput over 25T for each appliance, a comprehensive catalog of tools such as Easy Virtual Network (EVN) to facilitate the deployment of VLANs, Virtual Switching System (VSS) technology for stateful interchassis failover with subsecond virtual switch restoration and 99.999% availability, IPv4 and IPv6 capability, Application Visibility and Control (AVC) to maximize system utilization, and advanced Quality of Service capabilities for business-critical data prioritization.

Catalyst switches allow businesses of any size to build intelligent switching services into their network infrastructure, creating an ecosystem that can deal with real-time requirements, expand to support expected capacity demands, protect sensitive information, and separate and manage tasks to enhance network productivity.

Catalyst 1000 Series Fixed Ethernet Switches
Cisco's Catalyst 1000 Layer 2 network access switches are small form factor, fixed-configuration switches targeted for smaller businesses and branches with up to 250 users and with minimal in-house IT support. The Catalyst 1000 Series includes fanless models for noiseless operation outside a wiring closet in an office environment. Mounting kits include desktop, wall mount, rack mount, and DIN rail mount. Designed as a simple replacement for Cisco Catalyst 2960-L or 2960-Plus deployments, the Catalyst 1000 family includes versions with 8 to 48G Ethernet ports or 24 to 48 Fast Ethernet 10/100M Mbps ports.

Catalyst 1000 set up and administration are simple using a web interface or CLI, security is enterprise-class, and Power over Ethernet capability with a dynamically allocated power budget of 740W allows a wide range of IoT solutions. Up to eight Catalyst 1000 Gbit Ethernet model switches can be controlled at once with single IP. All Catalyst Series 1000 models are line-rate devices, and all are powered by Cisco's venerable IOS operating system software. Quality-of-Service features include egress queues for every port as well as priority packet queuing to deliver wire-speed throughput for data, IP voice, and video data. Catalyst 1000 switches also offer Shaped Round Robin (SRR) scheduling and Weighted Tail Drop (WTD) congestion management.

Catalyst 9000 Series Fixed and Modular Managed Switches
The Catalyst 9000 line of switches offers modular and fixed appliances and supports all deployment models including access, aggregation, and core switching. The Catalyst 9000 series offers devices with the right price/performance to connect people and things in environments from small businesses and branch offices to major enterprises. Catalyst 9000 products can be set up to support any mix of local deployments, private and public clouds, and hybrid networks. Unified management platforms and advanced cybersecurity solutions reduce expenses by cutting operational overhead and safeguarding critical network assets. Cisco's 9000X series of switches provide converged switching/routing, delivering the first mix of 400G QSFP-DD ports plus full multigigabit Ethernet and Power-over-Ethernet ports.

With double the backplane stacking bandwidth at around half the cost of the legacy Cisco Catalyst 2960-X and 2960-XR switches they are designed to replace, Cisco's Catalyst 9200 Series switches are a natural infrastructure upgrade for small branch offices and midsize campuses. The Catalyst 9200 portfolio includes switches that support 24 or 48 ports with full PoE+; 80-160 Gbps backplane stacking bandwidth; and Layer 3 features that include OSPF Interior Gateway Protocol, EIGP distance routing protocol, IS-IS, and routed access. Catalyst 9200 switches run the Cisco IOS XE operating system.

The Catalyst 9200 offers 160-Gbps stacking bandwidth, features onsite-replaceable redundant power supplies and fans, and supports add-in modules with 4x1G, 4x1/10G, 2x25G, or 2x40G uplink. The Catalyst 9200 Enhanced VN model supports as many as 32 Virtual Networks and offers 160-Gbps backplane stacking bandwidth. The Catalyst 9200L offers 80-Gbps backplane stacking bandwidth. The Catalyst 9200L multigigabit and the Catalyst 9200 multigigabit offer wireless performance optimization with 8 or 12 multigigabit Ethernet ports as fast as 10G.

Catalyst 9300 Series switches are fixed, stackable units for high-density enterprise access switching. Key capabilities available with various models in the Catalyst 9300 product line include up to 1Tbps stacking bandwidth, stackable high-speed fiber, up to 448 mGig Ethernet ports and 288 ports of 90W UPOE+ with an 8-device configuration, end-to-end IPsec tunnel with AES-256 Encryption and performance up to 100G, redundant fans and power, plus data stack and StackPower cables compatible across the complete Catalyst 9300 product line.

Based on the Cisco IOS XE operating system, switches in the Catalyst 9300 product line support auto provisioning, API-based configuration, granular visibility for close to realtime monitoring, and transparent software patching. Advanced security capabilities include Encrypted Traffic Analytics (ETA) as well as AES-256 MACsec and IPSec encryption, and Trust Anchor Technologies with Image signing. Cloud security is enhanced because Catalyst 9300 switches can host the Cisco Umbrella agent directly. This makes it possible for organizations to customize their DNS filtering policies granularly to block BYOD or IoT clients from accessing dangerous websites.

The value-priced Cisco Catalyst 9300L switch provides as much as 320G backplane stacking capacity and offers 12 100M/1G/2.5G/5G/10G ports and 36 10M/100M/1G ports. The 9300L utilizes fixed instead of modular uplink components for 4 1G, 4 10G, or 2 40G uplink ports. The Cisco Catalyst 9300 appliance offers 480G of stacking bandwidth and can provide 48 100M/1G/2.5G/5Gbps Ethernet 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 top-of-the-line Cisco Catalyst 9300X switch delivers 1T backplane stacking capacity and offers 48 10G port density. The 9300X supports uplink modules with dual-rate 100G/40G, multirate 25G/10G/1G, or mGig. Cisco 90W Universal Power Over Ethernet+ supports IoT-intensive environments such as smart buildings. Cisco offers hardware to support 100G IPsec.

Cisco's Catalyst 9400 Series devices are modular switches based on Cisco IOS XE and intended for medium-size and large campus access networks. Delivering twice the throughput and more than quadruple the chassis bandwidth as the Catalyst 6500 it is designed to replace, the Catalyst 9400 family ushers switch capability into the modern age of connectivity driven by cybersecurity, mobility, IoT, and cloud.

Catalyst 9400 switches are offered with 4-slot, 7-slot, and 10-slot chassis. Two slots on each chassis are dedicated to redundant supervisor cards, leaving 2, 5, or 8 slots open for line cards. Max bandwidth scalability per line-card slot is 480G. Switching capacity can reach 1.44 Terabits per second and forwarding rate on Supervisor Module is as high as 9 Tbps for the 10-slot chassis. All Catalyst 9400 chassis can provide 90W UPOE+ on every access port, protected network segmentation with Software-Defined Access and N+N/N+1 power redundancy for high resilience. The Catalyst 9400 4-slot switch supports 96 10/100/1000 ports, 5G/10G multigigabit ports, or 10G SFP+ ports. The Catalyst 9400 7-slot switch supports 240 ports, and the Catalyst 9400 10-slot supports 384 ports. All Catalyst 9400 models can provide 2 non-blocking 40 Gigabit Ethernet Quad Small Form-Factor Pluggable uplinks and up to 8 non-blocking 10G Ethernet SFP+ uplinks.

The Catalyst 9500 product line consists of fixed core and edge services appliances designed for the enterprise campus. Catalyst 9500 switches are powered by the Cisco IOS XE operating system and the series includes the first infrastructure technology to deliver switching speeds higher than 25 Terabits per second.

Cisco's Catalyst 9500 appliances deliver as high as 6.4 Terabits per second switching performance with forwarding throughput up to 2 Bpps. Catalyst 9500 switches can support as many as 32 nonblocking 100 GB QSFP28 ports, 32 nonblocking 40G QSFP+ ports, 48 nonblocking 25 Gigabit SFP28 ports, or 48 nonblocking 10G ports. You can configure Multichassis EtherChannel across Cisco StackWise-Virtual members to achieve high availability.

Catalyst 9500X switches support up to 25.6 Terabits per second switching capacity with up to 2 Billion Packet per Second forwarding speed. Catalyst 9500X models deliver up to 28 nonblocking 40/100 GB QSFP28 ports or 8 nonblocking 40/100/200/400 Gigabit QSFP-DD ports. The 9500X line also includes hardware support for line-rate 256-bit 802.1AE Media Access Control Security (MACsec) and WAN-MACsec1 data encryption.

Catalyst 9600 Series switches are modular core and distribution appliances intended for the enterprise campus. The 6-slot 9600 Series chassis with a Catalyst 9600X Series Supervisor delivers switching capacity as high as 25.6 Terabits per second 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 GE QSFP-Double Density ports. The Catalyst 9600 switch also provides dual-rate 40G/100G and 10G/25G optics. Two chassis slots are dedicated for high-availability supervisors. You can combine a selection of line cards for core and aggregation environments. The chassis uses a passive backplane, making it possible to change out fan tray, power supplies, and line cards without disruption.

End-of-Life Catalyst Products Still Supported by Progent's Consultants
Progent's Cisco certified network consultants have extensive backgrounds providing online and onsite consulting and troubleshooting services for older Catalyst Series switches for which Cisco has announced End of Life or End of Support. These legacy Catalyst switches typically are more expensive to operate and maintain than current models, deliver lower capacity and fewer features, and for some cases can expose organizations to compliance and even liability risks. Progent's consultants can assist your business to manage and repair these legacy Cisco products and can in addition assist you to plan and carry out seamless migrations to current models within the Catalyst line or to devices from the Cisco Nexus line of switches which take advantage of Catalyst design experience.

Cisco Catalyst Express 500 Family
Cisco's Catalyst Express 500 line of fixed-configuration switches are designed for businesses with up to 250 employees and provide the reliability, security, extensibility, and features small and mid-sized companies need at an affordable cost. PoE support makes it easy to install network appliances like wireless access points and IP cameras.

Models of the Cisco Catalyst Express 500 managed switches offer from 8 to 24 10/100/1000BT Ethernet ports as well as optional redundant power with automatic switch-over for additional reliability. Integration with Cisco wireless access points allows organizations to set up a wireless LAN network rapidly and easily. The Catalyst Express 500 and 520 platform offers solid protection against malicious attacks thanks to the Cisco Self-Defending Network technology and Cisco Clean Access agents. Cisco Catalyst 2940 Switch
Catalyst 2900 fixed-configuration, managed 10/100 Ethernet switches offer fundamental workgroup networking for small to midsize companies. These wire-rate desktop appliances offer Cisco IOS Software functions for simple mixed-media traffic services at the edge of the network. The Cisco 2940 family of managed switches are small, stackable devices with eight Fast Ethernet connections and a single built-in Fast Ethernet or Gigabit uplink. They can be installed outside the wiring cabinet in cramped office spaces such as on a worker's desk or in a conference room.

Cisco Catalyst 2960-S Series Switch
The Cisco Catalyst 2960-S Series are fixed-configuration switches intended for small businesses and branch offices. Available versions have 24 or 48 10/100/1000 Ethernet ports, four 1GE or two 10-Gigabit uplink ports, and deliver switching capacity of 176 Gbps. Cisco's FlexStack feature permits four Catalyst 2960-S chassis to be combined in a FlexStack stack to perform as one switch that offers 40 Gbps of stacking performance and that reduces administrative expense with single-switch setup. Cisco's IPv6 First Hop Security (FHS) capability protects against address theft and malicious attacks.

Cisco Catalyst 3560 Switches
The Catalyst 3560 Series is a selection of fixed-configuration switches that features IEEE 802.3af and PoE functionality in 10/100 Ethernet and 10/100/1000 implementations. The Cisco Catalyst 3560 Series switch is a proven Layer 2 switch for small enterprise LAN access or branch-office environments, offering both Gigabit and PoE options for high efficiency while streamlining the deployment of key technology such a VoIP, wireless access, video monitoring, and remote video kiosks. Customers can activate comprehensive intelligent services including QoS, rate limiting, ACLs, multicast management, and fast IP routing while maintaining the ease of traditional LAN switching.

The Cisco Catalyst 3560 family switch has a robust set of capabilities that allow for network expandability and enhanced resilience via IP routing as well as a complete complement of Spanning Tree Protocol (STP) improvements aimed to maximize availability in a Layer 2 network. Improvements to the standard Spanning Tree Protocol, including Per-VLAN Spanning Tree Plus, and Uplink Fast, combined with innovations such as Flex Links interfaces, contribute to network efficiency. Per-VLAN Spanning Tree Plus (PVST+) allows for Data Link Layer load sharing on backup links to take advantage of the extra bandwidth inherent in a redundant design.

Important routing mechanisms including Open Shortest Path First, EIGRP, BGP, and Policy Based Routing increase network scale; Protocol Independent Multicast increases the efficiency of system resource use; and Virtual Route Forwarding Lite (VRFLite) secures data.

Cisco Catalyst 3750 Series Switches
For midsized organizations and enterprise branches, the Cisco Catalyst 3750 Series simplifies integration of converged technologies and adapts to evolving business needs by offering configuration versatility, support for unified network traffic, and management-free configuration of intelligent system services. Also, the Cisco Catalyst 3750 Series switch is designed for high-density Gigabit deployments and includes a wide range of switches that address the connectivity, aggregation, and backbone-connectivity demands of small or midsized deployments.

The Cisco Catalyst 3750 switch has either the IP Base or the IP Services image. The IP Base image functions include industry-leading quality of service (QoS), rate-management, ACLs, and basic static and RIP routing support. The IP Services image offers a richer set of high-end features, such as advanced hardware-based IP unicast/multicast routing.

Cisco StackWise technology is an architecture designed for 1000 Ethernet. This technology is designed to respond to installs, deletions, and redeployments while maintaining consistent performance. Cisco StackWise technology combines up to nine individual switches into one functional device, utilizing special stack-interconnect cables and utilities. Any of the switches can be any combination of the Catalyst 3750 Series and Cisco's Catalyst 3750-E switches. The stack operates as an individual switching unit that is directed by a master switch, elected from one of the stack of switches. The master switch intelligently builds and updates all the switching and user-selected routing tables. A deployed stack can accept new switches or delete old members without operational discontinuity.

Cisco Catalyst 2960 Swiches and Catalyst 3560-CX Switches
Cisco's Catalyst 2960-CX is a fixed-configuration switch that is ultra-compact, fanless, power efficient, and includes a variety of mounting options. The device has eight 10/100/1000 Ethernet ports and two 1-GE uplinks and optionally provides PoE+ power. Cisco's Catalyst 3560-CX appliance is a fixed-configuration switch housed in a sleek, noiseless and low-power enclosure that can be mounted virtually anywhere convenient. Versions are available with eight or 12 10/100/1000 Ethernet ports or with 6 10/100/1000 Ethernet ports plus two multigigabit Ethernet ports. Two or four uplinks are available, and PoE+ power is also an option.

Cisco's Catalyst 2960-L family includes entry-level fixed-port managed switches designed for small offices, retail areas, and other environments where space is at a premium. These compact switches have 8 to 48 GE ports and either two or four Small Form-Factor Pluggable uplink ports. Power over Ethernet support saves space and fanless design for the 8- versions eliminates noise. RJ-45 connectors handle 10BASE-T, 100BASE-TX, 1000BASE-T and 1000BASE-T SFP-ports.

Cisco Catalyst 2960-X and Catalyst 2960-XR Series switches improve on the 2690-S family of switches by offering switching performance of up to 216 Gbps and providing Cisco's FlexStack-Plus stacking technology by means of a live-swappable plug-in that can combine 8 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. Cisco's Catalyst 2960-XR switch is capable of Layer 3 dynamic routing, offering the convenience of having a single switch for Layer 2 and Layer 3 routing.

Catalyst 3650 and Catalyst 3850 Switches
Catalyst 3650 and Catalyst 3850 switches are fixed-configuration, stackable network access devices powered by Cisco's IOS XE OS and featuring comprehensive wireless network controller capability that lets you control wired and wireless infrastructure on a one platform powered by a single OS. Cisco offers models with 24 or 48 1Gb Ethernet connections with Power over Ethernet plus (PoE+), four 1GE or four 10GE uplinks, and support for as many as nine Catalyst switches per stack. All versions offer expandable Quality of Service, fast switchover for maximum availability, support in software for IPv4/IPv6 routing, multicast routing, and advanced security.

Since wireless data traffic is visible at the Catalyst 3000 family switch, administrators can identify and assign priorities to wireless data with Cisco's Flexible NetFlow (FNF) solution along with advanced Quality of Service features for a better user environment and faster problem mediation. Fast Ethernet switching supports the high-throughput called for by the new 802.11ac Wave 2 wireless standard on existing cabling solutions. (To find out about Progent's consulting and support services for Cisco's 802.11ac Aironet wireless technology, and Meraki cloud-managed access points, refer to Planning and Deployment Support for Cisco Wireless Access Points and Controllers.)

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

Catalyst 4500-E and Catalyst 4500-X Series Switches
Catalyst 4500-E and and Cisco Catalyst 4500-X Series switches are designed for campus and distribution environments where space for infrastructure equipment is at a premium. Powered by Cisco's IOS XE operating system, both the Catalyst 4500-E and 4500-X product lines facilitate virtualization thanks to Cisco's EVN and Virtual Switching System technologies. Virtualization allows you to segment a physical network into multiple virtual networks whose data and control planes are logically distinct. This makes possible the efficient utilization, protection, resilience, and simplified management required for Cloud environments or other scenarios where a common infrastructure must be shared by software and services that must operate in total privacy from one another. Easy Virtual Network streamlines the task of creating virtual networks and can be expanded to 32 VNs for each switch. EVN incorporates the capabilities of Multi-VRF and provides additional technologies such as VNET Tags and an easy way for duplicating replicating routes between VNs. VSS technology makes it possible to configure Catalyst 4500-E and Catalyst 4500-X Series switches to produce non-stop VNs with optimized traffic load balancing.

Cisco Catalyst 4500-E Series Switches
Cisco's Supervisor Engine 8-E for the Catalyst 4500-E modular switch includes an integrated wireless controller that supports Cisco's Unified Access solution for wired and wireless convergence. The Supervisor Engine 8-E is the first Cisco Catalyst supervisor engine to permit wired as well as wireless services on one platform powered by IOS XE software. Features include Cisco's FNF solution for capacity planning encompassing wired and Wi-Fi networks, TrustSec wired and wireless security, predictable Quality of Service for wired and wireless networks, plus the extension of NSF/SSO to cover wireless traffic for enterprise-class high availability.

Offered in chassis with from three to 10 slots, Catalyst 4500-E switches can handle as many as 384 10/100/1000 Ethernet access ports, up to 192 1GE fiber fiber ports, 96 10-Gigabit Ethernet fiber ports, and eight 10GE uplink ports. The Catalyst 4500-E Supervisor Engine 8-E delivers 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 on each chassis, and up to 250 APs and 4000 wireless users can be supported in a two-switch deployment without requiring a standalone wireless network controller.

Catalyst 4500-X Series Switches
Cisco's Catalyst 4500-X switches are fixed 10-Gigabit Ethernet aggregation switches that can deliver up to 800 Gbps of core switching performance per chassis. The Catalyst 4500-X switch supports up to 32 10GE ports on the unit's baseboard and eight extra 10GE ports on the expansion module for a maximum of 40 10-Gigabit Ethernet connections. Eight 10GE uplink ports are available with another module. In addition to offering non-stop performance and simple management, Cisco's virtual switching system solution on Catalyst 4500-X Series switches offers higher system performance of as much as 1.6 Tbps by enabling all possible bandwidth between redundant Catalyst 4500-X Series switches. Other features include FNF solution for application visibility, Cisco TrustSec protection, and fast, hardware-based IPv6 forwarding.

Cisco Catalyst 6500 and Catalyst 6800 Series Switches
Catalyst 6500 and Cisco Catalyst 6800 Series switches are enterprise campus backbone platforms that share the proven DNA of the Catalyst 6500 family of switches, which first appeared over a decade ago and which have been steadily improved ever since. Catalyst 6500 Series and Catalyst 6800 Series switches provide identical features and operation, and the modular Cisco Catalyst 6807-XL accepts the Cisco Catalyst 6500 Series Supervisor Engine 2T and the associated family of line cards and modules. This cross compatibility and program of ongoing improvement preserves your IT expenditures and enables you to update your network backbone with little service interruption or management team training.

Shared features of Cisco Catalyst 6500 Series and Cisco Catalyst 6800 Series modular switches equipped with Cisco's Supervisor Engine 2T include the Cisco Identity Services Engine (ISE) for simple, single-point administration to put in place consistent policy across a distributed network, VSS Quad Sup SSO (VS4O) technology for 99.999% availability via multi-level failover, and the Cisco Campus Locator/ID Separation Protocol (LISP) to facilitate roaming and device mobility and to simplify virtualization and transition to IPv6. Other virtual networking features to partition specific client groups and serve the unique security/compliance and QoS policy needs of each group include Layer 2 and Layer 3 VPN, complete MPLS, Easy Virtual Network, VPN Routing and Forwarding-aware technology for NAT NetFlow, IPv6 over IPv4 GRE Tunnels, and Layer 2 geographic extensions with VPLS. For converged wired/wireless environments, the Wireless Services Module 2 controller Catalyst 6500 and Catalyst 6800 Series modular switches can manage as many as 1000 APs and 15,000 wireless users.

Catalyst 6500-E Switches
The Cisco Catalyst 6500-E line of modular switches are intended for aggregation and enterprise backbone networks that require world-class availability and high concentrations of 10/100/1000 Ethernet, 1 GE fiber, or 10 and 40 Gigabit Ethernet access ports. Models have three to 13 slots and accept a wide range of interface modules. Integrated service modules support wireless, network monitoring, and security and compliance. Only E-Series versions of Cisco's extensive line of 6500 switches accept the Supervisor Engine 2T.

The entry-level Cisco Catalyst 6503-E switch has a 4 rack unit chassis, holds 3 expansion slots, and offers 180 Gbps of switching performance on each slot. The Cisco Catalyst 6503-E can support up to 97 10/100/1000 Ethernet ports, up to 99 Gigabit Ethernet fiber ports, up to 34 10GE ports, and up to 8 40GE ports.

The top-of-the-line Catalyst 6513-E switch has a 19 rack unit, 13-slot chassis and can deliver up to 180 Gbps of bandwidth on each slot, with a total system bandwidth as high as 4 Tbps. A VSS configured system can handle 8 Tbps of switching throughout. The Cisco Catalyst 6513-E switch can support a maximum of 529 10/100/1000 Ethernet connections, up to 534 Gigabit Ethernet fiber connections, up to 180 10-Gigabit Ethernet access ports, and 44 40GE ports.

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

The modular Cisco Catalyst 6807-XL switch has a 10-rack-unit chassis that has 7 expansion slots and supports standard Supervisor Engine 2T line cards and service modules. (Two slots are reserved for the Supervisor Engine and five are for expansion modules.) The Cisco Catalyst 6807-XL can deliver up to 880 Gbps of switching bandwidth per slot and up to 11.4 Tbps of switching capacity while supporting up to 240 10/100/1000 Ethernet ports or 1GE fiber connections, 80 10GE ports or up to 20 40-Gigabit Ethernet access ports. A two-chassis 6807-XL system with VSS is capable of supporting 22.8 Tbps of switching capacity, 480 1 Gigabit Ethernet connections or Gigabit Ethernet fiber ports, up to 160 10-Gigabit Ethernet connections or 40 40-Gigabit Ethernet access ports.

How Progent Can Assist You with Cisco Catalyst Switches
Progent offers the online or on-premises support services of Cisco CCIE-certified consultants who have extensive backgrounds providing Catalyst switch support for small and medium sized organizations, branches, enterprise campuses, data centers, Cloud networks, and SPs. Progent's areas of expertise include Catalyst and Nexus lines of managed switches and with Cisco's IOS and NX-OS control software. Services available from Progent's experts for Catalyst switches include proof-of-concept testing, system analysis, network architecture planning, upgrades and project management, virtualization, wired and wireless unification, network management, performance optimization, problem mitigation, disaster recovery planning, and IT security testing and validation.

Progent has broad knowledge of open standards as well as with proprietary Cisco technologies associated with switching and routing including Border Gateway Protocol, MPLS traffic engineering, PIM, VPNs, ISIS, VLANs, FabricPath, VPC, HSRP, Virtual Router Redundancy Protocol, OSPF, VSS, and Locator/ID Separation Protocol (LISP). Progent's infrastructure experts also offer deep knowledge of crucial technologies such as TCP/IP protocols, IPv4/IPv6, Enhanced Interior Gateway Routing Protocol (EIGRP), Routing Information Protocol, and Internet Group Management Protocol (IGMP). Progent's CISSP-ISSAP certified data security and compliance consultants can assist you to develop a comprehensive security and compliance plan and implement Cisco Catalyst switches so that they provide maximum support for your security posture.

If you require ultra high Ethernet density or sub-microsecond latency switches for a world-class data center, Progent can assist your organization to evaluate, plan, and carry out a migration to Nexus Series switches. To learn about Progent's consulting and support capabilities for Nexus switches, see Nexus Switch configuration 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 see additional information about Progent's consulting support for Cisco technology, select a subject:

• Introduction to Progent's Cisco Engineering Services
• Fast and Affordable Remote Help from a CCIE Network Engineer
• Cisco Firepower Series Firewalls: Integration and Management Services
• Cisco ASA 5500-X Firewalls with Firepower Services: Consulting and Management Support
• ASA 5500 Series Firewall Management Help
• PIX Series Firewall Upgrade. Migration Help
• Cisco Routers Engineering Services
• Cisco Wireless Engineering Expertise
• Aironet Access Points Deployment Expertise
• Cisco Small Business 100, 300 and 500 Wireless APs Deployment Support
• Catalyst Wi-Fi 6/6E Wireless Access Points Solution Design, Configuration and Debugging Consulting
• Cisco WiFi Controllers Consulting
• Cisco Meraki Wireless APs Consulting Services
• Cisco Unified Communications Manager (CUCM or Unified CM) and CallManager Configuration and Troubleshooting
• Cisco Voice over IP Phones and IP Video Desktop Phones Expertise and Cisco Wireless VoIP Phone Solutions
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• Cisco Nexus Switches Consulting and Support Expertise
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• Cisco Security and VPN Engineering Support
• SIP and CUBE Integration Solutions: SIP PSTN Trunks and Cisco CUBE Integration Consulting
• Cisco Duo MFA Two-factor Authentication Services for Teleworkers
• Design Expertise for Cisco-powered Datacenters and Colocation Centers
• Network Design Services for ISPs
• Unified Cloud-based and Hybrid Management Technologies for Cisco-powered Environments