Maximum Business Value

As Cisco's flagship LAN switching platform, the Cisco Catalyst 6500 Series Switch offers the highest levels of availability and integrated security, strongest support for converged applications, superior operational efficiency, leading scalability/flexibility, and unmatched, long-term investment protection among Cisco switching products designed for medium-sized business, enterprise, and service provider networks. The flexible range of Catalyst 6500 options makes this platform ideal for network-wide deployments, from the data center to the wiring closet.

The Catalyst 6500 Series Switch continues to set the standard for high-end LAN switching with industry-leading innovations, such as:

Highest Availability:

The Catalyst 6500 Series with Cisco IOS Software Modularity enables subsystem In-Service Software Upgrades (ISSU) and stateful process restarts; Generic Online Diagnostics (GOLD) proactively detect hardware and software faults; Non-Stop Forwarding and Stateful SwitchOver (NSF/SSO) delivers application and service continuity; and redundant system components provide hardware-level resiliency.

Highest Level of Integrated Security:

These switches include multiple Denial-of-service (DoS) attack mitigation mechanisms, integrated security service modules for high-performance threat protection and secure connectivity, Man-in-the-middle attack mitigation innovations to protect against IP phone call eavesdropping, and Identity-Based Networking Services (IBNS) to control network access.

Strongest Support for Converged Applications:

Advanced features include embedded real-time monitoring of VoIP call quality; the Cisco Communication Media Module, which allows you to connect TDM and analog devices to the IP network; a wireless LAN services module to simplify deployment and management of WLAN infrastructure; Application-Oriented Networking (AON) Module to provide message-level routing, visibility, and security; the Application Control Engine (ACE) Module that provides organizations with new levels of control over the way that they deploy, operate, deliver, secure, and manage their applications and business services across the extended enterprise. Additional converged applications support includes high-density 802.3af Power over Ethernet with intelligent power management, advanced IP multicast, and Quality of Service features.

Superior Operational Efficiency:

The Catalyst 6500 Series with Cisco IOS Software Modularity simplifies software changes and enables process-level policy control; Embedded Event Manager (EEM) allows you to create automated policies to ease management; Encapsulated Remote SPAN (ERSPAN) enables centralized analysis of remote traffic across L3 boundaries; and network virtualization features such as MPLS, VRF-lite, and firewall virtualization provide efficient network segmentation.

Leading Scalability and Flexibility:

The Catalyst 6500 Series currently supports up to 288 Class 3 (15.4W) Power over Ethernet (PoE) devices, plus up to 1152 10/100-Mbps, 576 10/100/1000-Mbps, or 32 10-Gbps Ethernet ports in a single chassis, and system scalability up to 720 Gbps, providing 40 Gbps/slot (half-duplex). Additional choices include 3, 4, 6, 9, and 13-slot chassis options and several WAN interface module options.

Unmatched, Long-Term Investment Protection:

The Catalyst 6500 Series is a long-term platform with a deep pipeline of future innovations. It offers several daughter-card options for incremental upgrades and backward compatibility to support multiple generations of interface modules.