Cisco Enhances Catalyst 6500 with Virtual Switching, Catalyst 4500 with

Cisco announced significant enhancements to its widely deployed Catalyst switching line, including a "virtual switching" for combining the capacity of multiple Catalyst 6500 switches into one, and a new CenterFlex technology for boosting the bandwidth of the Catalyst 4500 platform.



Key points of the announcement include:



Cisco Catalyst 6500 Series Virtual Switching System (VSS) 1440 enabled by the Virtual Switching Supervisor Engine 720 with 10 Gigabit Ethernet -- this effectively combines multiple Catalyst 6500 switches into one, scaling system bandwidth capacity to as much as 1.44 terabits per second (Tbps). Multiple Cisco Catalyst 6500 Series Switches can now share a single-point of management, single routing instance and single IP address, as well as eliminating the dependence on spanning-tree and first-hop redundancy protocols like the Virtual Router Redundancy Protocol (VRRP). Cisco said the Catalyst 6500 VSS 1440 delivers deterministic, subsecond Layer 2 link recovery through interchassis stateful failovers and the predictable resilience of multichassis Etherchannel technology.



Cisco Smart Call Home service capability -- this new capability for the Catalyst 6500 Series provides continual monitoring and real-time troubleshooting and alerts. Cisco service requests are automatically generated and sent to the Cisco Technical Assistance Center (TAC) with associated diagnostics for fastest time to resolution.



Cisco Catalyst 4500 E-Series with CenterFlex technology -- delivering 320 Gbps and a fourfold increase in per-slot bandwidth using a centralized and flexible architecture. The Cisco CenterFlex technology can be used to fine-tune port-level hardware resources for specific services that enable Unified Communications. Cisco said the CenterFlex technology resulted in the filing of 19 new technology patents enhancing security, QoS and performance.



New Catalyst 4500 E-Series Line Cards -- includes the Supervisor6-E, three new E-Series 10 Gigabit Ethernet and 10/100/1000 PoE line cards that quadruple bandwidth per slot, and four new E-Series chassis (3, 6, 7, and 10-slot configurations).



The Catalyst 4500 Backward compatibility -- Customers can mix and match existing and E-Series line cards without performance degradation. Upgrading to the new Supervisor 6-E adds CenterFlex features to previously deployed line-card ports.

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