Older Reviews

January 05, 2008

Network

Cisco Catalyst 6500 VSS
The Cisco Catalyst 6500 Virtual Switching System is the latest from the Cisco Internet Switching Business Unit which is responsible for the Catalyst 6500 line of products.

Reviews

Cisco Catalyst 6500 Virtual Switching System 1440

The Cisco Catalyst 6500 VSS 1440 is cisco's answer to competition like Foundry, Extreme and even Nortel who either position speeds or high availability protocols like SMLT, etc.

The Cisco Catalyst 6500 VSS 1440 will scale upto 1.44 TB by combining the throughput of the data plane's of both the
chassis in the VSS cluster.

Unlike Nortel, Cisco Catalyst 6500 VSS 1440 will only have a single management for the two switches which would be in the VSS cluster. The key enabler for the VSS functionality is the new Cisco Catalyst 6500 Supervisior 720-10G-3C.

Other than eliminating the need for STP, the Cisco Catalyst 6500 VSS will reduce the number of standby redundant links by using the Multi-chassis EtherChannel (MEC).

The Cisco Catalyst 6500 VSS 1440 will be a step towards the Campus Communication Fabric which also has components like the new Cisco 4500 Centerflex technology.