Why Migrate?
At inception, the Layer 2 fixed-configuration Cisco
®
Catalyst
®
1900, 2900 XL, and 3500 XL Series Switches
were designed for low-density LAN access networks.
But much has changed since their deployment in the
mid to late 1990s. With all three at end of sale, it is time
to consider a resilient multilayer platform that supports
today’s security, quality-of-service (QoS), and Power
over Ethernet (PoE) requirements with Gigabit Ethernet
and 10 Gigabit Ethernet uplinks. The Cisco Catalyst 4500
E-Series Switch is ideally suited for voice, video, and
data networks.
Entry-Level Cisco Catalyst 4500 E-Series
For sites that require 60 to 116 ports, the Cisco Catalyst
4503-E Switch with Cisco Catalyst 4500 Series
Supervisor Engine II-Plus-TS provides a compact and
resilient solution. This powerful platform can provide
L2/3/4 switching with L3 QoS and security.
Figure 1. Catalyst 4503-E Switch
Cisco Catalyst 4500 E-Series Advantages
•
High performance:
Predictable high performance
(IPv4/IPv6) with concurrently enabled services
(QoS, Security, Multicast).
•
Increased control and flexibility:
Optimize
performance of voice, video, and data application
over a unified network.
•
High availability and security:
Minimize planned
and unplanned downtime delivering business-
critical applications securely and uninterrupted.
•
Scalable services capacity:
Ample resources to
enable new services today and in the future.
•
IPv4 to IPv6 migration:
Optimized to enable
IPv4 and IPv6 simultaneously, providing for a
smooth migration.
•
Superior investment protection:
Maximum
backward and forward compatibility. Mix and match
new and classic line cards without performance
degradation.
Investment Protection
Critical components of the Cisco Catalyst 4500 E-Series
Switch are upgradable and field replaceable, including
line cards, supervisor engines, power supplies, and fans.
In addition, line cards shipped in 1999 as Layer 2 only are
fully compatible with the Cisco Catalyst 4500 E-Series
today and are fully upgradable to Layer 3 switching and
IPv6. Future generation supervisor engines will also
be backward compatible with classic and E-Series line
cards, providing superior investment protection and a
lower cost of ownership versus stackable switches.
Cisco Catalyst 4500 E-Series Supervisor
Engine 6-E
This supervisor engine features the new CenterFlex
technology and 320 Gigabits per second aggregate
performance. It includes larger Ternary Content
Addressable Memory (TCAM) resources for high feature
capacity as well as support for IPv6 in hardware and
enhanced QoS.
Figure 2. Supervisor Engine 6-E
High Availability
The most complex components of the Cisco Catalyst
4500 E-Series support redundancy. This includes
1+1 supervisor engines, power supplies, and fans.
HA is also supported in software, including supervisor
Non-Stop Forwarding (NSF) with Stateful Switch-Over
(SSO), which lets the switch pass traffic during a failover,
helping ensure that phone calls do not drop. In-Service
Software Upgrade (ISSU) allows upgrade or downgrade
of complete Cisco IOS
®
Software images with
minimal impact.
Network Security
The Cisco Catalyst 4500 E-Series provides advanced
detection and mitigation from Layer 2 and Layer 3
network attacks with no degradation in switching
performance.
•
Independent security resources:
The Cisco
Catalyst 4500 offers scalable independent TCAM
resources to process security features, separate
from L2/L3 forwarding decisions, which protects
against denial-of-service attacks.
•
802.1x:
Used to identify, authenticate, and authorize
appropriate network access. The Cisco Catalyst
4500 Series also supports extensions for dynamic
VLAN assignment.
Why Migrate from Fixed Switches to Cisco Catalyst
4500 E-Series Switches
At-A-Glance
