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Catalyst 3550 Multilayer Switch Software Configuration Guide
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Chapter 1 Overview
Features
–
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.
See the
“Advantages of Using CMS and Clustering Switches” section on page 1-8
. For the CMS,
software, and browser requirements and for the cluster hardware and software requirements, refer
to the release notes.
Performance
•
Autosensing of port speed and autonegotiation of duplex mode on all switch ports for optimizing
bandwidth
•
IEEE 802.3X flow control on all Ethernet ports
•
EtherChannel for enhanced fault tolerance and for providing up to 8 Gbps (Gigabit EtherChannel)
or 800 Mbps (Fast EtherChannel) full duplex of bandwidth between switches, routers, and servers
•
Port Aggregation Protocol (PAgP) and Link Aggregation Control Protocol (LACP) for automatic
creation of EtherChannel links
•
Per-port storm control for preventing broadcast, multicast, and unicast storms
•
Port blocking on forwarding unknown unicast and multicast traffic
•
Cisco Group Management Protocol (CGMP) server support and Internet Group Management
Protocol (IGMP) snooping for IGMP versions 1, 2, and 3:
–
(For CGMP devices) CGMP for limiting multicast traffic to specified end stations and reducing
overall network traffic
–
(For IGMP devices) IGMP snooping for limiting flooding of multicast traffic
•
IGMP report suppression for sending only one IGMP report per multicast router query to the
multicast devices (supported only for IGMPv1 or IGMPv2 queries)
•
Multicast VLAN registration (MVR) to continuously send multicast streams in a multicast VLAN
while isolating the streams from subscriber VLANs for bandwidth and security reasons
•
IGMP filtering for controlling the set of multicast groups to which hosts on a switch port can belong
•
IGMP throttling for configuring the action when the maximum number of entries is in the IGMP
forwarding table
•
System Database Management (SDM) templates for allocating system resources to maximize
support for user-selected features
•
Web Cache Communication Protocol (WCCP) for redirecting traffic to local cache engines, for
enabling content requests to be fulfilled locally, and for localizing web-traffic patterns in the
network (requires the enhanced multilayer software image)
Manageability
•
Cisco Intelligence Engine 2100 (IE2100) Series Cisco Networking Services (CNS) embedded
agents for automating switch management, configuration storage and delivery.
•
Dynamic Host Configuration Protocol (DHCP) for automating configuration of switch information
(such as IP address, default gateway, host name, and Domain Name System [DNS] and Trivial File
Transfer Protocol [TFTP] server names)
•
DHCP server for automatic assignment of IP addresses and other DHCP options to IP hosts
•
DHCP relay agent information (option 82) for subscriber identification and IP address management