Viewpoint: how to view the CISCO switch 3550 Series

CISCO vswitch 3550 provides advanced layer-3 refined QoS features to ensure the classification and sorting of network traffic and effectively solve network congestion. CISCO switch 3550 is a new type of enterprise-class, stackable multi-layer switch that provides high availability, scalability, security, and management capabilities to improve network operations. With a series of Fast Ethernet and Gigabit Ethernet configurations, the Catalyst 3550 series Cisco switches can act as powerful access layer switches for medium-sized enterprise cabling rooms and backbone switches for medium-sized networks.

The customer can deploy smart services within the network, such as advanced service quality (QoS), speed limit, Cisco Security Access Control List, multicast management, and high-performance IP route selection, at the same time, it maintains the simplicity of traditional LAN switching, which is the first in the market. CISCO switch 3550 is embedded with the Cisco Cluster Management Suite CMS) software that enables users to configure and correct multiple Catalyst Cisco switches simultaneously using a standard Web browser. The Cisco CMS software provides a new Configuration Wizard that greatly simplifies the implementation of integrated applications and services in the network.

Today, many companies rely more and more on networks as strategic enterprise infrastructure. Therefore, networks must achieve extremely high availability, security, scalability, and control. After Cisco intelligence is added to the cabling room, the customer will be able to deploy the network intelligence service to meet the above requirements in a unified manner from the desktop to the core, and even the entire WAN.

With the Cisco Catalyst smart Ethernet switch, Cisco Systems helps companies gain all the benefits of adding smart devices to their networks. The deployment function makes the network infrastructure highly available to meet the requirements of time-sensitive applications. The scalability can well adapt to the future growth of data, and the high security can protect confidential information, it also helps to differentiate and control various traffic and further optimize network operations.

Achieve network control through advanced service quality and speed limit

CISCO vswitch 3550 provides advanced layer-3 refined QoS features to ensure the classification and sorting of network traffic and to avoid congestion in the best way. Before a packet enters the shared buffer, the CISCO switch 3550 series can classify, reclassify, and policy the incoming packet to determine whether the packet flows or comes from a predetermined user, and take action on the packet). Packet Classification allows network devices to differentiate traffic and implement policies based on the QoS fields of layer 2nd and layer 3rd.

To implement QoS, CISCO switch 3550 first identifies traffic or packet groups, and then uses the Special Service Code point field DSCP in the IP package) and/or 802.1p service level CoS in the Ethernet package) fields are classified or reclassified by these groups. Classification and multiclass classification can be performed based on the conditions specified in the source/Target IP address, source/Target MAC address, or Layer 2 Transmission Control Protocol (TCP)/User Datagram Protocol (UDP) port. At the entrance, the Catalyst Switch also processes and marks the packets. Control Panel and data panel Access Control List ACL) can be supported on all ports to ensure correct policy processing and tagging based on each group.

After classification, Policy Processing, and marking of packets, packets will be allocated to the corresponding queue before the switch is released. CISCO switch 3550 supports four egress queues, allowing network administrators to more detail various applications on the LAN and assign priority. At the exit, the switch performs sorting and congestion control. Sorting refers to the algorithm/process used to determine the processing sequence of a queue. Vswitches support Weighted Round-Robin WRR) sorting and strict priority sorting. The WRR sorting algorithm ensures that low-priority packets will never get the bandwidth without affecting the priority settings of the network administrator. Strict priority sorting ensures that the packets with the highest priority receive services before all other traffic, and the other three queues receive services through WRR sorting. In combination with sorting, the Catalyst 3550-12T and 3550-12G support weighted Random Early Detection WRED) to support congestion management. WRED sets a threshold value for discarding packets before congestion occurs to avoid congestion.

These features enable network administrators to prioritize critical business/or bandwidth-intensive traffic, such as ERPOracle, SAP, etc.), voice IP telephone traffic) and CAD/CAM, and later processes time-insensitive applications, such as FTP or email SMTP ). For example, the Administrator may not want to download large files to a port on the switch in the cabling room, but also download the voice traffic with high quality requirements to another port on the switch, increase the latency. To avoid this problem, you can classify the voice traffic and prioritize the transmission over the network. Other applications, such as Web browsers, can be processed after being dragged. You only need to do your best.

CISCO switch 3550 supports speed limiting through the Cisco commitment Information Rate CIR function. With CIR, the bandwidth can be expanded incrementally at 8 kbps. You can allocate bandwidth based on several conditions, including the MAC source address, MAC Destination Address, IP Source Address, IP destination address, and TCP/UDP port number. When the network environment requires a service level agreement, or the network administrator must control the bandwidth of some users, the bandwidth must be allocated. The Catalyst 3550-12T and 3550-12G support 128 centralized or independent input policy processors per port, or 8 centralized output policy processors per port, providing network administrators with comprehensive and meticulous bandwidth management capabilities.

Select the network scalability supported by High-Performance Routing

With a 24 Gbit/s switching structure and a maximum transfer rate of 12 Gbit/s, the Catalyst 3550-12T and 3550-12G switches provide dynamic IP routing for all ports at a rate of 17 mpps. The Cisco fast transfer CEF-based routing architecture supports improved scalability and performance. This architecture supports extremely high-speed search functions and ensures the stability and scalability required to meet future needs. In addition to dynamic IP unicast routing, the excellent configuration of the Catalyst 3550 makes it very suitable for networks that require multicast support. The hardware Multicast Routing Protocol PIM) and the Internet Group Management Protocol IGMP) monitoring feature makes the Catalyst 3550 switch an ideal choice for strict Multicast Environments.

These switches provide multiple advantages to improve network performance when used as centralized switches in the stacked top wiring room. For example, the uplink routing is selected from the top of the stack, and all Spanning Tree Protocol events are connected to the concentrator switch to achieve faster fault recovery protection and simplify the Spanning Tree Protocol algorithm, this improves network availability. If one of the uplink fails, use the Extensible routing selection protocol, such as Open Shortest Path First (OSPF) or improved internal gateway routing selection protocol (OSPF), and the non-standard Spanning Tree Protocol is merged, enables faster fault recovery to redundant uplinks. After a link failure, the packet redirection is completed through the routing selection protocol. Compared with the solution that uses the layer-2 spanning tree to improve content, the network can be merged more quickly. In addition, you can select an upstream route to achieve better bandwidth usage by selecting routes at the same cost on the upstream. This will lead to Dynamic Load Balancing in the network that frequently suffers bottlenecks. In addition, by removing unnecessary broadcast data from the inbound network backbone network, you can select the uplink route to optimize the use of the uplink of the real-time available cabling room.

The Catalyst 3550 acts as a centralized switch in the stacked top cabling room in a multicast environment and provides significant bandwidth savings. Because the routing to the network core is used to select the uplink, you no longer need to transmit the same multicast information stream from the upstream container to the centralized switch in the wiring room. For example, if three users are allocated to three different virtual VLAN VLANs and all of them want to browse multicast ABC, three types of information flows of multicast ABC are required, transfer from the upstream router to the centralized switch in the cabling room. Assume that the concentrator switch cannot select the uplink route. Using a Catalyst 3550 switch to deploy an IP route to the core, you will be able to build a scalable and diversified multicast network to support your customers.

Customers with existing copper infrastructure in buildings now have great opportunities to migrate their LAN to gigabit rates. The Catalyst 3550-12T or 3550-12G can be installed on a network backbone network or used as a stack top concentrator to provide a transfer rate of 12 Gbps to a single IP management switch stack. In combination with the new Cisco Catalyst 3550T-24 and Cisco 1000BaseT Gigabit Interface Converter GBIC), CISCO switch 3550 can be used for medium-sized enterprise customers who rapidly develop their Ethernet backbone networks, provides integrated copper Gigabit Ethernet solutions.

Improves network security through Cisco Access Control Parameters

CISCO switch 3550 uses the access control list ACL to improve data security. Users can reject packets based on the source MAC address and target MAC address, IP address, or TCP/UDP port, thus controlling the sensitive part of the network. Not only that, because all ACL queries are executed on hardware, implementing ACL-based security in the network does not reduce the transmission performance. By deploying 1005 virtual VLAN VLANs per vswitch), network administrators can also implement higher-level data security and improve LAN performance. This ensures that data packets are transmitted only to a site in a VLAN, so as to build an independent conflict domain between network port groups and reduce Broadcast Transmission. VLAN relay can be constructed from any port using the standard 802.1Q or Cisco switch link ISL) VLAN relay architecture. In addition, the edge of a dedicated VLAN provides security and isolation between the ports of the switch to ensure that the information flow is directly transmitted from the entry point to the centralized device through the Virtual Path, instead of being directed to another port. Local proxy Address Resolution Protocol (ARP) can be used with the edge of a dedicated VLAN to minimize the number of broadcasts and greatly increase the available bandwidth. For advanced security management, CISCO switch 3550 supports standard and extended ACLs on all VLAN ports and Route Selection ports.

With the multi-layer Cisco Catalyst 3550 switch, network administrators can achieve extremely high console security. The multi-level access security and Web-based management interface on the vswitch console can prevent unauthorized users from accessing or modifying vswitch configurations. The Access Controller Access Control System (TACACS +) authentication can provide centralized access control for switches to prevent unauthorized users from modifying configurations.