The technology industry has few real transformative events, but replacing Cisco with its Catalyst 6000 family could have such an effect on customers and the company itself. Introduced in 1999, the Catalyst 6000 versions occupy a central place in the heart of dozens of corporate networks, like the Cisco Catalyst 2960 have done today. The migration of these only customers to the Catalyst 9600 switch introduced yesterday by the company will be of great importance to Cisco, whose goal is to reorganize and maintain its dominance over large central campus deployments.
Launched in June 2017, the first Catalyst in 9000 already belongs to a series considered to be the fastest in Cisco’s history. “Around the world, tens of thousands of Cat 6000s are spinning into campus hearts. Indeed, Cat 6000 features such as MPLS support, virtual switching, and IPv6 are found in the Cat 9000, in addition to building or supporting new elements such as network-based networking. On intention (IBN), wireless networks, and security segmentation. Strategically, the 9600 will enable Cisco to complete its revamped lineup that includes the 9200 Access Switch family, the 9500 Aggregation Switch, the Catalyst 3650 and the 9800 Wireless Controller.
The Catalyst 9600 In Detail:
- The 9600 Series is a line of modular 40, and 100 Gigabit Ethernet switches specifically designed for the corporate campus with a wired switching capacity of up to 25.6 TBps and maximum bandwidth 6.4 Tb / s per slot
- The switch supports granular port densities that address a variety of campus needs, including 40 and 100 Gigabit Ethernet Quad Small Form-Factor Pluggable (QSFP +, QSFP28) and 1, 10, and 25 non-blocking port densities GE Small Form-Factor Pluggable Plus (SFP, SFP +, SFP28).
- The 9600 can support up to 48 non-blocking 100 Gigabit Ethernet QSPF28 ports with Cisco Catalyst 9600 Series Supervisor Engine 1; up to 96 non-blocking 40 Gigabit Ethernet QSFP + ports with the Cisco Catalyst 9600 Series Supervisor Engine 1 and up to 192 25-Gigabit Ethernet SFP28 / SFP + non-blocking ports with the Cisco Catalyst 9600 Series Supervisor Engine 1
- The 9600 supports advanced routing and infrastructure services (MPLS, Layer 2 and Layer 3 VPN, VPN Multicast, and NAT Network Address Translation).
- It offers Cisco Software-Defined Access access capabilities (such as a host tracking database, Compatible with VPN Virtual Routing and Forwarding (VRF) routing tables and Network System Virtualization with Cisco StackWise Virtual Technology)
