Cisco CATALYST 5500 9 PORT GIGABIT ETHERNET SWITCH MODULE Specification Guide
solutions build on this functionality, providing capabilities such as
Gigabit EtherChannel, multicast, virtual LANs (VLANs),
management, and security that are as easy to administer as previous
tools, but with an order of magnitude improvement in performance,
as outlined in the following features.
Gigabit EtherChannel for Future-Proof Backbones
Because customers needed a growth path to faster, resilient links,
Cisco has led the industry with innovative Fast EtherChannel and
Gigabit EtherChannel technology. Thousands of Fast
EtherChannel ports have been deployed in production networks.
Cisco Gigabit EtherChannel is based on this proven technology.
With Cisco Gigabit EtherChannel technology, critical backbone
trunks can be scaled to multiple gigabits of throughput as
backbone traffic continues to grow. By combining four Gigabit
Ethernet links into one logical link, up to 8 Gbps of throughput is
possible between devices. Traffic is automatically load-balanced
between physical links in the most efficient manner possible using
the Port Aggregation Protocol (PAgP). Furthermore, Gigabit
EtherChannel technology provides an unmatched level of
resiliency. If one physical port on a Gigabit EtherChannel link
goes down, all traffic on that port is automatically redirected and
load-balanced to the remaining ports. This redirection happens in
under one second with no operator intervention, assuring
maximum backbone throughput and availability. Gigabit
Etherchannel is available on the nine-port Gigabit Ethernet
module.
Industry-Leading VLANs
Cisco Catalyst 5000 Gigabit Ethernet solutions support
the complete Cisco VLAN architecture, providing for broadcast
containment that scales solutions to 1000 VLANs per switch.
These VLANs can be established across multiple switches within
the fabric, including support for dynamic Media Access Control
(MAC) and network-layer VLANs, dynamically accommodating
moves, adds, and changes within the switched network without
operator intervention.
Multicast Performance
As an intranet service, the Catalyst 5000 Family also supports
efficient intranet multimedia and multicast support through the use
of Protocol Independent Multicast (PIM), Internet Group
Management Protocol (IGMP), and Cisco Group Management
Protocol (CGMP), delivering end-to-end, scalable bandwidth for
multimedia and multicast applications.
Advanced Quality of Service
With the convergence of mission-critical business and multimedia
applications on the common intranet, there is an increasing need
for quality of service (QoS) and support for multicast-intensive
applications. A new set of intranet services is required to ensure
the reliability and availability of these applications. IEEE
standard 802.3x (pause frames) flow-control compliance is
provided on the Catalyst 5000 Gigabit Ethernet solutions for
link-layer flow control. Since pause frames block an entire link for
a given period of time, they are used primarily in smaller networks
where a blocked link won’t block flows for multiple switches or
hosts.
Because QoS and flow control are really end-to-end,
not link-layer issues, and they need to be scaled across the
enterprise, the Catalyst 5000 Family supports the most advanced
traffic management and QoS in the industry. Cisco QoS
capabilities go well beyond 802.3x pause frames. For frame
switching, the Catalyst 5000 Family implements active
congestion control and extensive buffering mechanisms to ensure
timely delivery of packets without packet loss, even in severely
congested situations.
QoS across the frame switching fabric is implemented using
a three-level priority scheme. The Catalyst 5000 Family supports
multiple levels of priority in the switching fabric; two levels are
user defined. Each interface can be set as either high priority or
low priority (default is low). The Catalyst 5000 Family maintains
the third priority group above the user’s high priority for ports
with buffers nearing overflow or extended time periods off the
switching backplane. The bus arbitration logic maintains separate
logical queues for each priority class and guarantees that
high-priority queues are served first, reducing latency caused by
buffering delays. In addition bus arbitration logic is interoperable
with emerging standards such as Resource Reservation Protocol
(RSVP) and 802.1Q/p. This feature is ideal for such
time-sensitive traffic as voice or video. The same QoS
architecture spans from the wiring closet to the backbone to
ensure critical traffic receives the needed priority throughout its
journey over the network.
Powerful Management and Administration Solutions
The Catalyst 5000 Family gigabit solutions are complete with
comprehensive embedded manageability so that network
managers can easily configure and monitor the module within the
Catalyst system from the CiscoWorks enterprise management
console. The CiscoWorks enterprise console provides