The Cisco switch product lines below comprise the modular configuration Cisco switches available:
Catalyst 4500
The Catalyst 4500 is the first midrange modular switching platform offering multilayer switching for enterprises, small- to medium-sized businesses, and service providers.
With forwarding rates up to 136 Gb/s, the Catalyst 4500 series is capable of managing traffic at the distribution layer. The modular capability of the Catalyst 4500 series allows for very high port densities through the addition of switch port line cards to its modular chassis. The Catalyst 4500 series offers multilayer QoS and sophisticated routing functions.
The Catalyst 4500 series switches are available in different modular configurations:
- Modular 3, 6, 7, and 10 slot chassis offering different layers of scalability
- High port density: up to 384 Fast Ethernet or Gigabit Ethernet ports available in copper or fiber with 10 Gigabit uplinks
- PoE (Cisco pre-standard and IEEE 802.3af)
- Dual, hot-swappable internal AC or DC power supplies
- Advanced hardware-assisted IP routing capabilities
Catalyst 4900
The Catalyst 4900 series switches are designed and optimized for server switching by allowing very high forwarding rates. The Cisco Catalyst 4900 is not a typical access layer switch. It is a specialty access layer switch designed for data center deployments where many servers may exist in close proximity. This switch series supports dual, redundant power supplies and fans that can be swapped out while the switch is still running. This allows the switches to achieve higher availability, which is critical in data center deployments.
The Catalyst 4900 series switches support advanced QoS features, making them ideal candidates for the back-end IP telephony hardware. Catalyst 4900 series switches do not support the StackWise feature of the Catalyst 3750 series nor do they support PoE.
The Catalyst 4900 series switches are available in different fixed configurations:
- Up to 48 10/100/1000 ports with four SFP ports or 48 10/100/1000 ports with two 10GbE ports
- Dual, hot-swappable internal AC or DC power supplies
- Hot-swappable fan trays
Catalyst 6500
The Catalyst 6500 series modular switch is optimized for secure, converged voice, video, and data networks. The Catalyst 6500 is capable of managing traffic at the distribution and core layers. The Catalyst 6500 series is the highest performing Cisco switch, supporting forwarding rates up to 720 Gb/s. The Catalyst 6500 is ideal for very large network environments found in enterprises, medium-sized businesses, and service providers.
The Catalyst 6500 series switches are available in different modular configurations:
- Modular 3, 4, 6, 9, and 13 slot chassis
- LAN/WAN service modules
- PoE up to 420 IEEE 802.3af Class 3 (15.4W) PoE devices
- Up to 1152 10/100 ports, 577 10/100/1000 ports, 410 SFP Gigabit Ethernet ports, or 64 10 Gigabit Ethernet ports
- Dual, hot-swappable internal AC or DC power supplies
- Advanced hardware-assisted IP routing capabilities