1-2
Catalyst 2900 Series XL and Catalyst 3500 Series XL Software Configuration Guide
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Chapter 1 Overview
Features
Table 1-1
Features
Ease of Use and Ease of Deployment
•
Cluster Management Suite (CMS) software for simplified switch and switch cluster management through a web browser,
such as Netscape Communicator or Microsoft Internet Explorer, from anywhere in your intranet
•
Switch clustering technology, in conjunction with CMS, for
–
Unified configuration, monitoring, authentication, and software upgrade of multiple switches. Refer to the release
notes (
http://www.cisco.com/univercd/cc/td/doc/product/lan/c2900xl/index.htm
) for a list of eligible cluster
members.
–
Automatic discovery of candidate switches and creation of clusters of up to 16 switches that can be managed through
a single IP address.
–
Extended discovery of cluster candidates that are not directly connected to the command switch.
•
Hot Standby Router Protocol (HSRP) for command-switch redundancy
Note
See the
“Advantages of Using CMS and Clustering Switches” section on page 1-7
. Refer to the release notes
(
http://www.cisco.com/univercd/cc/td/doc/product/lan/c2900xl/index.htm
) for the CMS and cluster hardware,
software, and browser requirements.
Performance
•
Autosensing of speed on the 10/100 ports and autonegotiation of duplex mode on all switch ports for optimizing
bandwidth
•
IEEE 802.3x flow control on the Gigabit ports operating in full-duplex mode
•
Fast EtherChannel and Gigabit EtherChannel for enhanced fault tolerance and for aggregating up to 8 ports of bandwidth
between switches, routers, and servers
•
Per-port broadcast storm control for preventing faulty end stations from degrading overall system performance with
broadcast storms
•
Cisco Group Management Protocol (CGMP) for limiting multicast traffic to specified end stations and reducing overall
network traffic
•
CGMP Fast Leave for accelerating the removal of unused CGMP groups to reduce superfluous traffic on the network
•
Multicast VLAN registration (MVR) to continuously send multicast streams in a multicast VLAN, but to isolate the
streams from subscriber VLANs for bandwidth and security reasons
•
Internet Group Management Protocol (IGMP) filtering for restricting the IP multicast groups that hosts connected to one
or more switch ports can join