Friday, October 27th, 2006

Cisco Catalyst 6500 switches: A Brief History of the Universe

I was helping to explain the Cisco 6500 series switches to a new associate, and put together this brief explanation of a variety of configurations. I think other might find it helpful. - Chris

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The Catalyst 6500 series of switches is a modular system. The four different chassis are WS-C6503 (3 slots), WS-C6506 (6 slots), WS-C6509 (9 slots), and WS-C6513 (you guessed it, 13 slots). The 6506 and 6509 are the two most popular, with the edge starting to go to the 6506 as more and more dense modules are becoming available. What that means is that within a given slot, you can fit more and more ports as Cisco shrinks down the size of the electronics. The 6506 is smaller than than the 6509 and due to the denser modules, is capable enough for many w/o taking up as much space. Here are some prices:

WS-C6506 — $2,995
WS-C6509 — $3,095

Each chassis can hold two power supplies, ranging from 1300 watts each up to 6000 watts each, I believe. The required wattage is dependent upon the caliber of modules installed into the chassis. The most common are 1300W, 2500W, and 3000W. The power supplies have their own slots and do not take up any of the -3, -6, -9, or -13 module slots in their respective chassis.

WS-CAC-1300W — $129
WS-CAC-2500W — $999
WS-CAC-3000W — $1,999

Each chassis must have one or two supervisor module(s). These days, the bare minimum is a SUP1A…on up to the bad-boy SUP720-3BXL.

WS-X6K-SUP1A-2GE — $299
WS-X6K-SUP1A-MSFC — $499 (same as the module above, but with a Multi Switch Fabric Card bolted onto the motherboard)
WS-X6K-SUP2-2GE — $1,999
WS-X6K-SUP2-MSFC2 — $2,499 (same as the module above, but with a Multi Switch Fabric Card version 2 bolted onto the motherboard)
WS-SUP720 — $11,150
WS-SUP720-3B — $13,250
WS-SUP720-3BXL — $13,850

Then there are the I/O (input/output) modules themselves…these are what the supervisor modules control. There are a lot of them, so I will cover only some of the most common. The basics are as follows: 10/100Mbps (or Fast Ethernet, FE), 10/100/1000Mbps (or Gigabit Ethernet, GigE), and recently 10000Mbps (or 10 Gig). The slower ones are older, but still quite widely used. All speeds are technically available in copper (traditional wire) or fiber optic, referred to as “copper” and “fiber”, but FE is most commonly copper while 10 Gig is most commonly fiber. Gig E is about 50/50 copper and fiber and some of the modules themselves have modular “either/or” ports–can be copper or fiber, depending upon what receptacles you put in them. Here are some popular models, slowest to fastest:

In copper:

WS-X6348-RJ-45 — $615 (FE)
WS-X6548-RJ-45 — $1,400 (FE, switch fabric enabled)
WS-X6148-GE-TX — $5,300 (GigE)
WS-X6548-GE-TX — $7,400 (GigE, switch fabric enabled)
WS-X6748-GE-TX — $8,890 (GigE, 40Gbps total module performance)

In fiber (these ports can accept several different types of fiber receptacles (known as GBICs):

WS-X6408-GBIC — $1,395
WS-X6416-GBIC — $4,250
WS-X6516-GBIC — $5,850
WS-X6516A-GBIC — $8,750

In “either/or” (these ports can also accept several different types of receptacles (known as mini-GBICs) into their smaller, SFP (Small Form factor, Pluggable) ports, but not only are there GigE fiber and copper versions of these mini-GBICs, there are also 10 Gig fiber versions):

WS-X6724-SFP — $9,195
WS-X6748-SFP — $10,350

As I said, there are many more, but these are the most commonly-sold items. Here are a few basic packages:

WS-C6506 — $7,475
2x WS-CAC-1300W
1x WS-X6K-SUP2-MSFC2
1x WS-X6408-GBIC
1x WS-X6348-RJ-45

WS-C6506 — $59,200
2x WS-CAC-2500W
2x WS-SUP720
1x WS-X6748-SFP
2x WS-X6748-GE-TX
1x WS-X6148-GE-TX

WS-C6509 — $22,998
2x WS-CAC-1300W
2x WS-X6K-SUP2-MSFC2
2x WS-X6516-GBIC
1x WS-X6548-RJ-45
4x WS-X6348-RJ-45

WS-C6509 — $81,950
2x WS-CAC-3000W
2x WS-SUP720-3BXL
2x WS-X6748-SFP
2x WS-X6748-GE-TX
2x WS-X6148-GE-TX

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Thursday, October 19th, 2006

A Word from the Cisco Kid

Chambers Interop keynote: ‘Anytime, anywhere, any mode you want’ by ZDNet’s David Berlind — Here in the bowels of the Mandalay Bay’s convention center, where Interop is taking place (not only has Networld+Interop trimmed its name, it has moved from the Las Vegas Convention Center to the Mandalay Bay and announced a new New York City-based December edition), Cisco CEO John Chambers, as usual, gave the kick-off keynote for […more]

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Monday, October 16th, 2006

NetIron XMRs coming soon!

We have a pending deal for a bunch of XMR routers that is on the verge of closing. This is the first time we will be able to get this relatively new model in stock and we are currently taking orders to reserve units for select customers. If you want one of these babies, send us an email or give us a ring. They will be gone as quickly as they came.

1-888-IT-ASSET or email

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Friday, October 13th, 2006

Cost per port: Cisco vs. Foundry

While preparing two proposals for a customer, Los Angeles-based AM6 Networks (a nationwide leader in carrier colocation and IP transport), I discovered an interesting cost-per-port comparison. This customer was looking for a solution for a large number (over 2,000) of Gigabit copper ports for Layer 2 switching. He didn’t care about the manufacturer; just reliability. Since we sit on perhaps the largest Foundry inventory in the world, an obvious consideration was Foundry. The only other viable option was Cisco Systems, since the number of ports needed was exceptionally high, requiring several modular chassis. We like to stick to Cisco and Foundry because, in our experience, they are the two most reliable solutions.

Anyway, after all calculations were done, the Cisco solution came out to $154.45 per copper Gig port while the Foundry solution chimed in at $156.52 per port.

This is a great illustration of the market identically valuing two industry leaders. There is no more accurate gauge of a commodity’s value than a broad secondary market (such as ours), and the fact that the originally less expensive Foundry option has effectively made up some ground speaks for the product’s robustness.

Does this mean that every comparable Foundy and Cisco product are priced the same? No, as fluctuations in supply and demand for each product are very dynamic. But at this time, for this class of product, Cisco and Foundry are very similar.

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Friday, October 6th, 2006

Cisco Announcing 10-Gigabit Ethernet module for Catalyst 6500

I just got a press release in my inbox announcing that Cisco Systems is releasing a new eight-port 10-Gigabit Ethernet module for the Catalyst 6500 Series. Designed specifically for the data center market, this upgrade will continue the push for 10-Giagabit Ethernet to become the standard in data networking.
With almost 70% of the 10-Gig projected $1.3 Billion market share and a more powerful, yet affordable design, the new Catalyst 6500 is posied to cement Cisco as the dominating force in the industry. This is bad news for companies like Foundry Networks and Nortell, who have recently seen increased sales of 10-Gig Ethernet switches. The next few months should prove interesting as these guys battle it out for market dominanace.

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