Cisco Enhances Catalyst 6500 with Programmable Intelligent Services Accelerator

Cisco announced a major enhancement to its flagship Catalyst 6500 Switching Platform with introduction of the Supervisor Engine 32 with Programmable Intelligent Services Accelerator (PISA) technology. The modular component provides the ability to analyze stateful and stateless application traffic flows for proactive security protection, compliance with corporate policies and management of network resource utilization.



PISA leverages deep packet inspection (DPI) technology to identify applications on the network and then allocate the necessary network resources to support each application based on business priorities. The new Supervisor Engine 32 with PISA also provides distributed protection against notable worms and viruses and day-zero attacks in the campus edge.



Cisco said PISA can be tuned to provide visibility into more than 100 applications, including P2P, CRM, ERP, IP video, IM, etc). Network managers can then block or limit these applications based on their business objectives.



A Cisco Catalyst 6500 Series Supervisor Engine 32 with PISA Technology and 8x1 Gigabit Ethernet Uplinks carries a list price of US$28,000. Availability is set for June. A Cisco Catalyst 6500 Series Supervisor Engine 32 with PISA Technology and 2x10Gigabit Ethernet Uplinks will also be available.

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