Cisco Upgrades Catalyst 4006 Supervisor Engine

Cisco Systems

The Catalyst 4006 Supervisor Engine III, announced at Comnet here Tuesday, allows enterprise and metro Ethernet service provider customers with Catalyst 4006 switches to roll out converged networks without replacing their network infrastructure, said Mark Foss, product manager for Cisco's Gigabit switching group.

The upgraded supervisor engine also gives Cisco's solution provider partners the opportunity to upgrade their existing clients' networks, Foss said. The Catalyst 4000 is the No. 1 midrange switch on the market with the largest installed base, Foss said. "As the most prevalent modular chassis in the industry, there is a tremendous opportunity for our partners to help their customers upgrade."

John Freres, president of Schaumburg, Ill.-based N2N Solutions, concurred. "This is a real opportunity for us," Freres said. "It helps our clients foster the investment they already have made in their infrastructure. Companies today are looking for strategic enhancements to their infrastructure."

The Supervisor Engine III integrates Layer 2-4 switching, quality of service, security features and management functions for Catalyst 4006 switches, which are primarily used as enterprise wiring closet or branch switches, Foss said.

The new control module delivers a 48-million-packets-per-second forwarding rate in hardware for both Layer 2 and Layer 3/4 traffic, Foss said. Compared with the Supervisor Engine II, the new control module triples the Layer 2 forwarding rate and increases the Layer 3 forwarding rate eightfold, Foss said.

The module also integrates Layer 2-4 based quality of service and traffic management based on 32,000 QoS policies, he said.

On the security front, the control module supports 32,000 wire-rate Layer 2-4 access lists, and includes capabilities such as authentication and client security.

The new module also supports Web-based management for the configuration and control of all ports, Foss added.

Available now, the Catalyst 4006 Supervisor Engine III is list priced at $14,995. The Catalyst 4006 Chassis, with Supervisor Engine III and 2 AC power supply bundle lists at $19,995.