Cisco Catalyst 4948 10 Gigabit Ethernet Switch

Description

10 Gigabit Ethernet Switching for High-Performance, Rack-Optimized Server Switching

Product Overview

The Cisco Catalyst^® 4948 10 Gigabit Ethernet Switch is a wire-speed, low-latency, Layer 2 to 4, 1-rack-unit (1RU), fixed-configuration switch for rack-optimized server switching. Based on the proven Cisco^® Catalyst 4500 Series hardware and software architecture, the Cisco Catalyst 4948 10 Gigabit Ethernet Switch offers exceptional performance, bandwidth, and reliability for low-density, multilayer aggregation of high-performance servers and workstations. High performance and scalability of intelligent network services is made possible with dedicated specialized resources known as ternary content addressable memory (TCAM). Ample TCAM resources (64,000 entries) enable high feature capacity, providing wire-speed routing and switching performance with concurrent provisioning of services such as quality of service (QoS) and security and helping ensure scalability for today’s network requirements with ample room for future growth.

The Cisco Catalyst 4948 10 Gigabit Ethernet Switch offers 48 ports of wire-speed 10/100/1000BASE-T with 2 ports of wire-speed 10 Gigabit Ethernet (X2 optics). Exceptional reliability and serviceability are delivered with optional internal AC or DC 1+1 hot-swappable power supplies and a hot-swappable fan tray with redundant fans (Figures 1 and 2).

Features and Benefits

Wire-Speed Performance in All Directions

The Cisco Catalyst 4948 10 Gigabit Ethernet Switch delivers wire-speed throughput with low latency for data-intensive applications using a 136-Gbps switching fabric with a forwarding rate of 102 million packets per second (mpps) in hardware for Layer 2 to 4 traffic. High-performance switching is maintained regardless of the number of route entries or Layer 3 and 4 services enabled. Hardware-based Cisco Express Forwarding routing architecture enables increased scalability and performance. X2 10 Gigabit Ethernet optics provide 20 Gigabit Ethernet wire-speed uplinks for outstanding throughput of traffic.

Power-Supply Redundancy for Nonstop Operation

The Cisco Catalyst 4948 10 Gigabit Ethernet Switch provides reliability for critical applications with 1+1 redundant, hot-swappable internal AC or DC power supplies. The 1+1 power supply design provides A-to-B failover when power supplies are connected to different circuits. AC and DC power supplies can be mixed in the same unit for outstanding deployment flexibility. The Cisco Catalyst 4948 10 Gigabit Ethernet Switch also has a hot-swappable fan tray with four redundant fans for additional serviceability and availability.

Comprehensive Management

The Cisco Catalyst 4948 10 Gigabit Ethernet Switch includes a single, dedicated 10/100 console port and a single, dedicated 10/100 management port for offline disaster recovery. Remote in-band management is available with the Simple Network Management Protocol (SNMP), Telnet client, Bootstrap Protocol (BOOTP), and Trivial File Transfer Protocol (TFTP). Support for local or remote out-of-band management is delivered through a terminal or modem attached to the console interface. The management port helps enable the Cisco Catalyst 4948 10 Gigabit Ethernet Switch to reload a new image from a TFTP server within seconds.

The Cisco Catalyst 4948 10 Gigabit Ethernet Switch delivers a comprehensive set of management tools to provide the visibility and control required for server switching. Managed with CiscoWorks solutions and embedded CiscoWorks CiscoView, the Cisco Catalyst 4948 10 Gigabit Ethernet Switch can be configured and managed to deliver device, VLAN, traffic, and policy management. These web-based management tools offer numerous services, including software deployment and quick isolation of error conditions.

Software Configuration Options

Table 1 describes the software configuration options for the Cisco Catalyst 4948 10 Gigabit Ethernet Switch.

Table 1.       Software Configuration Options for the Cisco Catalyst 4948 10 Gigabit Ethernet Switch

Feature Comparison

Table 2 compares the features of the Cisco Catalyst 4948 Switch, Catalyst 4948 10 Gigabit Ethernet Switch, and Catalyst 4900M Switch.

Table 2.       Cisco Catalyst 4900 Series Switches Model Comparison

Predictable Performance and Scalability

The Cisco Catalyst 4948 10 Gigabit Ethernet Switch is optimized for multimedia applications with its advanced multicast support. It supports Protocol Independent Multicast (PIM), Source-Specific Multicast (SSM), and Pragmatic General Multicast (PGM), providing end users with additional scalability to support multimedia applications. Also supported is Internet Engineering Task Force (IGMP) snooping in hardware, enhancing performance and reducing network traffic by allowing a switch to dynamically add and remove hosts from a multicast group.

Intelligent Network Services with QoS and Sophisticated Traffic Management

The Cisco Catalyst 4948 10 Gigabit Ethernet Switch offers superior per-port QoS features to help ensure that network traffic is classified, prioritized, and scheduled optimally to efficiently manage bandwidth-hungry multimedia, and time-sensitive and mission-critical applications. The Catalyst 4948 10 Gigabit Ethernet Switch can classify, police, and mark incoming packets, allowing the administrator to differentiate between traffic flows and enforce policies. Sharing, shaping, and strict-priority configurations determine scheduling of egress traffic. The Catalyst 4948 10 Gigabit Ethernet Switch also supports Dynamic Buffer Limiting (DBL), a congestion-avoidance feature. For details about the QoS features (including DBL) on the Cisco Catalyst 4948 10 Gigabit Ethernet Switch, refer to the Cisco Catalyst 4500 Series supervisor engine QoS overview at http://www.cisco.com/en/US/products/hw/switches/ps4324/prod_white_papers_list.html