CLASSIFICATION OF

CISCO SWITCHES
Nagarjuna A S
13CO232

Network Switches
Anetwork switch(also calledswitching
hub,bridging hub, officiallyMAC bridge) is
acomputer networking devicethat connects
devices together on acomputer network, by
usingpacket switchingto receive, process and
forward data to the destination device. Unlike
less network hubs, a network switch forwards
data only to one or multiple devices that need
to receive it, rather than broadcasting the
same data out of each of its ports.

Classification of Switches
Switches can be broadly classified into two
categories
1. Modular switches - allows you to add expansion
modules into the switches as needed, thereby
delivering the best flexibility to address changing
networks.
Ex : Cisco Catalyst 4k and 6k, Cisco Nexus 7k
series
2.
Fixed configuration switches - with a fixed number
of ports
and are typically not expandable.
Ex : Cisco Catalyst 2k, 3k series

Nexus 7k Series

Fixed configuration Switches

The Fixed configuration switches can
further be broken down into:
1. Unmanaged Switches
2. Smart Switches
3. Managed L2 and L3 Switches

Unmanaged switches
Plug and play, no configuration
Inexpensive, typically used in small
networks or to add temporary
workgroups to larger networks.
Ex : Cisco 100 Series, Cisco 110
Series

CISCO 100 Series

A line of unmanaged switches that
provide wire-speed Fast Ethernet and
Gigabit Ethernet connectivity to
connect small office businesses.
Designed for basic network needs
and to optimize power efficiency.

Cisco 100 Series Examples

Cisco 110 Series

Smart switches
Also known as Lightly Managed Switches
Offer certain levels of Management, QoS, Security, etc. but is
lighter in capabilities and less scalable than the Managed
switches. It therefore makes them a cost-effective alternative
to Managed switches. As such, Smart switches fit best at the
edge of a large network (with Managed Switches being used in
the core), as the infrastructure for smaller deployments, or for
low complexity networks in general.
Smart switches allow you to segment the network into
workgroups by creating VLANs, though with a lower number of
VLANs and nodes (MAC addresses) than youd get with a
Managed switch.
Cisco200 Seriesswitches are good examples of this
category.

Cisco 200 Series

Cisco 220 Series

Fully Managed Switches

Deployed as aggregation/access switches in very large networks
or as core switches in relatively smaller networks. Managed
switches should support both L2 switching and L3 IP routing
though youll find some with only L2 switching support.
Managed switches are rich in features that enable them to protect
themselves and the network from deliberate or unintended Denial
of Service attacks. It includes Dynamic ARP Inspection, IPv4 DHCP
snooping, IPv6 First Hop Security with RA Guard, ND Inspection,
Neighbour Binding Integrity, and much more.
Additional Security capabilities may include Private VLANs for
securing communities of users or device isolation, Secure
Management (downloads through SCP, Web-based Authentication,
Radius/TACACS AAA, etc.), Control Plane Policing (CoPP) for
protecting the CPU of the switch, richer support for 802.1x (timebased, Dynamic VLAN Assignment, port/host-based, etc)

Fully Managed Switches

From a Scalability perspective, these devices have large table sizes so that you
can create large numbers of VLANs (for workgroups), devices (MAC table size), IP
routes, and ACL policies for flow-based security/QoS purposes, etc.
When we talk about QoS and Multicast features, the richness of capabilities goes
far beyond what youd see in a Smart Switch. Here youd see things such as
IGMP and MLD Snooping with Querier functions for optimizing IPv4/v6 multicast
traffic in the LAN, TCP Congestion Avoidance, 4 or 8 queues to treat traffic
differently by importance, setting/tagging traffic by L2 (802.1p) or L3
(DSCP/TOS), and rate limiting traffic.
In terms of Management, things such as multiple ways to configure (using CLI,
Web GUI, SNMP Management application), discovering of neighbor devices in the
networks (using CDP, LLDP, Bonjour, etc), and troubleshooting capabilities (such
as VLAN and Port Mirroring, Traceroute, Ping, Syslog, Cable Diagnostics, RMON,
etc) are all included.
What I highlighted is by no means exhaustive, but gives you a sense of what
some of the differences may be between Managed and Smart Switches.
CiscoCatalystand Cisco300Seriesand500 Seriesswitches are good
examples of this category of products.

Cisco 300 and 500 Series

High performance and reliability
Advanced features: Control network traffic with
advanced features such as quality of service (QoS),
Layer 3 static routing, and IPv6 support.
Easy setup and management
Switches optimize power usage for energy efficiency
without compromising performance.
Protected for the life of the product by the Cisco
Limited Lifetime Hardware Warranty
500 Series are stackable