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