Catalyst is the

brand A brand is a name, term, design, symbol or any other feature that distinguishes one seller's good or service from those of other sellers. Brands are used in business, marketing, and advertising for recognition and, importantly, to create an ...

for a variety of

network switch A network switch (also called switching hub, bridging hub, and, by the IEEE, MAC bridge) is networking hardware that connects devices on a computer network by using packet switching to receive and forward data to the destination device. A netw ...

es, wireless controllers, and

wireless access points In computer networking, a wireless access point (WAP), or more generally just access point (AP), is a networking hardware device that allows other Wi-Fi devices to connect to a wired network. As a standalone device, the AP may have a wired co ...

sold by

Cisco Systems Cisco Systems, Inc., commonly known as Cisco, is an American-based multinational corporation, multinational digital communications technology conglomerate (company), conglomerate corporation headquartered in San Jose, California. Cisco develo ...

. While commonly associated with

Ethernet Ethernet () is a family of wired computer networking technologies commonly used in local area networks (LAN), metropolitan area networks (MAN) and wide area networks (WAN). It was commercially introduced in 1980 and first standardized in 198 ...

switches, a number of different types of network interfaces have been available throughout the history of the brand. Cisco acquired several different companies and rebranded their products as different versions of the Catalyst product line. The original Catalyst 5000 and 6000 series were based on technology acquired from Crescendo Communications. The 1700, 1900, and 2800 series Catalysts came from

Grand Junction Networks Cisco is an American computer networking company. Cisco made its first Takeover, acquisition in 1993, which was followed by a series of further acquisitions. History Founded in 1984, Cisco did not acquire a company during the first seven years o ...

, and the Catalyst 3000 series came from Kalpana in 1994. The newest Catalyst series is the Catalyst 9000 family. The Catalyst 9000 family includes switches, wireless access points, and wireless controllers.

Operating systems

In most cases, the technology for the Catalyst Switch was developed separately from Cisco's router technology. The Catalyst switches originally ran software called CatOS rather than the more widely known

Cisco IOS The Internetworking Operating System (IOS) is a family of proprietary network operating systems used on several router and network switch models manufactured by Cisco Systems. The system is a package of routing, switching, internetworking, and ...

software used by routers. However, this has changed as the product lines have merged closer together. In some cases, particularly in the modular chassis switches, a configuration called 'Hybrid' has emerged - this is where the

layer 2 The data link layer, or layer 2, is the second layer of the seven-layer OSI model of computer networking. This layer is the protocol layer that transfers data between nodes on a network segment across the physical layer. The data link layer pr ...

functions are configured using CatOS, and the

layer 3 In the seven-layer OSI model of computer networking, the network layer is layer 3. The network layer is responsible for packet forwarding including routing through intermediate routers. Functions The network layer provides the means of transfe ...

elements are configured using IOS. ''Native IOS'' can also be found with newer software versions that have eliminated CatOS entirely in favor of IOS, even on hardware that originally required CatOS. Some newer Catalyst switch models (with recent versions of the Cisco IOS) also allow web-based management using a

graphical interface The GUI ( "UI" by itself is still usually pronounced . or ), graphical user interface, is a form of user interface that allows users to interact with electronic devices through graphical icons and audio indicator such as primary notation, inste ...

(GUI) module which is hosted on a

HTTP The Hypertext Transfer Protocol (HTTP) is an application layer protocol in the Internet protocol suite model for distributed, collaborative, hypermedia information systems. HTTP is the foundation of data communication for the World Wide Web, ...

server located on the switch. Th
Catalyst 2960-L SM Series
of switches is an example of a Cisco Catalyst switch that allows this style of GUI via HTTP.

Cisco IOS

, formally the Cisco Internetwork Operating System, is a family of network operating systems used on many Cisco Systems network switches, routers, wireless controllers and wireless access points. Earlier, Cisco switches ran CatOS. Cisco IOS is a package of routing, switching, internetworking and telecommunications functions integrated into a multitasking operating system. Although the IOS code base includes a cooperative multitasking kernel, most IOS features have been ported to other kernels such as QNX and Linux for use in Cisco products. Cisco Catalyst products run IOS or a Linux-derived version called Cisco IOS XE. It was originally called ''XDI'' by the switching company Crescendo Communications, Inc. Cisco renamed it to ''CatOS'' when they acquired Crescendo and later still to Cisco IOS as the operating system was extended to other Cisco products. The newer Catalyst 9000 family uses the Cisco IOS XE operating system.

Interfaces

As Catalyst devices are primarily Ethernet switches, all modern Catalyst models have Ethernet interfaces ranging from 10 Mbit/s to 100 Gbit/s depending on the model. Other models can support T1, E1, and

ISDN Integrated Services Digital Network (ISDN) is a set of communication standards for simultaneous digital transmission of voice, video, data, and other network services over the digitalised circuits of the public switched telephone network. Wo ...

PRI interfaces to provide connections to the

PSTN The public switched telephone network (PSTN) provides infrastructure and services for public telecommunication. The PSTN is the aggregate of the world's circuit-switched telephone networks that are operated by national, regional, or local teleph ...

. Legacy models supported a variety of interfaces, such as

Token Ring Token Ring network IBM hermaphroditic connector with locking clip. Screen contacts are prominently visible, gold-plated signal contacts less so. Token Ring is a computer networking technology used to build local area networks. It was introduc ...

FDDI Fiber Distributed Data Interface (FDDI) is a standard for data transmission in a local area network. It uses optical fiber as its standard underlying physical medium, although it was also later specified to use copper cable, in which case it m ...

Asynchronous Transfer Mode Asynchronous Transfer Mode (ATM) is a telecommunications standard defined by American National Standards Institute (ANSI) and ITU-T (formerly CCITT) for digital transmission of multiple types of traffic. ATM was developed to meet the needs of ...

and

100BaseVG 100BaseVG is a 100 Mbit/s Ethernet standard specified to run over four pairs of category 3 cable (cable also known as voice grade, hence the "VG"). It is also called 100VG-AnyLAN because it was defined to carry both Ethernet and Token Ring ...

, but are no longer sold by Cisco Systems. All models have basic layer 2 functions and are capable of switching Ethernet frames between ports. Commonly found additional features are

VLAN A virtual local area network (VLAN) is any broadcast domain that is partitioned and isolated in a computer network at the data link layer (OSI layer 2).IEEE 802.1Q-2011, ''1.4 VLAN aims and benefits'' In this context, virtual, refers to a physi ...

trunking In telecommunications, trunking is a technology for providing network access to multiple clients simultaneously by sharing a set of circuits, carriers, channels, or frequencies, instead of providing individual circuits or channels for each clie ...

and QoS. The switches, whether IOS or IOS XE, are fully manageable. Many Catalyst switches that run IOS or IOS XE are also capable of functioning as a router, making them layer 3 devices; when coupled with TCP and UDP filtering, these switches are capable of layer 2-4 operation. Depending on the exact software image, a Catalyst switch that runs IOS or IOS XE may be able to tackle large-scale enterprise routing tasks, using router technologies like

OSPF Open Shortest Path First (OSPF) is a routing protocol for Internet Protocol (IP) networks. It uses a link state routing (LSR) algorithm and falls into the group of interior gateway protocols (IGPs), operating within a single autonomous sys ...

BGP Border Gateway Protocol (BGP) is a standardized exterior gateway protocol designed to exchange routing and reachability information among autonomous systems (AS) on the Internet. BGP is classified as a path-vector routing protocol, and it mak ...

. Modular chassis-based Catalyst switching models, like the Catalyst 9400 and 9600 Series, have the concept of field-replaceable supervisor, line cards, power supplies and fans. Mirroring most Cisco router designs, these work by separating the line cards, chassis, and supervisor engine. The chassis provides power and a high-speed

backplane A backplane (or "backplane system") is a group of electrical connectors in parallel with each other, so that each pin of each connector is linked to the same relative pin of all the other connectors, forming a computer bus. It is used as a backbo ...

, the line cards provide interfaces to the network, and the supervisor engine moves packets, participates in routing protocols, etc. This gives several advantages: * If a failure occurs, only the failed component needs to be replaced (typically a power supply, fan, line card or supervisor). This means faster turnaround than replacing an entire switch. * A redundant component may be installed to rapidly recover from component failures. * A supervisor engine may be upgraded after purchase, increasing performance and adding features without losing any investment in the rest of the switch.

Management

Catalyst switches offer advanced customization and manageability. The switches can be configured using a

serial console One meaning of system console, computer console, root console, operator's console, or simply console is the text entry and display device for system administration messages, particularly those from the BIOS or boot loader, the kernel, from the i ...

telnet Telnet is an application protocol used on the Internet or local area network to provide a bidirectional interactive text-oriented communication facility using a virtual terminal connection. User data is interspersed in-band with Telnet control i ...

Secure Shell The Secure Shell Protocol (SSH) is a cryptographic network protocol for operating network services securely over an unsecured network. Its most notable applications are remote login and command-line execution. SSH applications are based on a ...

Simple Network Management Protocol Simple Network Management Protocol (SNMP) is an Internet Standard protocol for collecting and organizing information about managed devices on IP networks and for modifying that information to change device behaviour. Devices that typically ...

(SNMP) allows monitoring of many states, and measurement of traffic flows. Many devices can also run an

HTTP server An HTTP server is a computer (software) program (or even a software component included in an other program) that plays the role of a server in a client–server model by implementing the ''server part'' of the HTTP and/or HTTPS network protocol ...

. Configuration of the switch is done in plain text and is thus easy to audit. No special tools are required to generate a useful configuration. For sites with more than a few devices, it is useful to set up a

Trivial File Transfer Protocol Trivial File Transfer Protocol (TFTP) is a simple lockstep File Transfer Protocol which allows a client to get a file from or put a file onto a remote host. One of its primary uses is in the early stages of nodes booting from a local area network. ...

(TFTP) server for storing the configuration files and any IOS images for updating. Complex configurations are best created using a text editor (using a site standard template), putting the file on the TFTP server and copying it to the Cisco device. However, it can be noted that a TFTP server can present its own security problems.

Stackwise

StackWise and Stackwise Virtual are technologies offered by Cisco Systems that allows some models of Catalyst switches to operate as though they were one switch. One switch from the stack will act as the master switch. The master switch will maintain the stack and allow you to configure and monitor the whole stack as though one via a single console. This allows for more efficient management and typically provides more bandwidth between individual switches than other uplink technology. If one switch fails, the remaining switches will continue to operate by bypassing it. If the master switch fails, another switch in the stack will automatically take over as master. This feature means greater redundancy, as one switch's failure will not bring about a failure of the entire stack. As each switch contains the entire configuration for the stack, one of the benefits of this technology is the ability to replace a faulty switch (any—including master) with a new switch. The stack will configure the new switch on-the-fly to accommodate minimal downtime and reduce maintenance effort and errors. Stackwise physically connects the switch stack using special stack interconnect cables, typically up to eight switches per stack. StackWise Virtual allows the virtual clustering of two chassis together into a single, logical entity without physical interconnect cables.

Master selection

The master switch of a stack is determined in the following order: # User specified priority in the switch configuration # The switch with the most advanced IOS feature set enabled # Programmed switchA configured switch will preside over a switch running factory defaults #

Uptime Uptime is a measure of system reliability, expressed as the percentage of time a machine, typically a computer, has been working and available. Uptime is the opposite of downtime. It is often used as a measure of computer operating system reliabi ...

The switch that has been running the longest #

MAC address A media access control address (MAC address) is a unique identifier assigned to a network interface controller (NIC) for use as a network address in communications within a network segment. This use is common in most IEEE 802 networking techno ...

The switch with the lowest MAC address

Models

There are two general types of Catalyst switches: fixed configuration models that are usually one or two rack units in size, with 12 to 80 ports; and modular switches in which virtually every component, from the CPU card to power supplies to switch cards, are individually installed in a chassis. In general, switch model designations start with WS-C or C, followed by the model line (e.g. C9600). A letter at the end of this number signifies a special feature, followed by the number of ports (usually 24 or 48) and additional nomenclature indicating other features like UPOE (e.g. C9300-48U). Catalyst 9000 switches also include software subscription license indicators (e.g. C9200-48T-P, E for Essentials, A for Advantage and P for Premier)

Fixed-configuration switches

;Cisco Catalyst 9500 Series :Layer 2 and layer 3 stackable core switches. ;Cisco Catalyst 9300 Series :Layer 2 and layer 3 stackable access and distribution switches. ;Cisco Catalyst 9200 Series :Layer 2 and layer 3 stackable access switches. ;Cisco Catalyst 1000 Series :Layer 2 stackable access switches. ;Cisco Catalyst 3850 series :Layer 2 and layer 3 stackable access and distribution switches. ;Cisco Catalyst 3650 series :Layer 2 and layer 3 switches with optional stacking capability. ;Cisco Catalyst 2960-X/XR Series :Layer 2 and layer 3 stackable access switches. ;Cisco Catalyst 2960-L Series :Layer 2 and layer 3 access switches. ;Cisco Catalyst 3560CX/2960CX Series :Compact, fanless layer 2 and layer 3 switches. ;Cisco Catalyst Digital Building Series :Compact, fanless layer 2 and layer 3 switches.

Modular switches

Cisco modular switches offer a configurable selection of chassis, power supplies, line cards and supervisor modules. Among Cisco's modular series are: * The Cisco Catalyst 9600 Series is a modular chassis-based core switch family. This series can support interfaces up to

100 Gigabit Ethernet 40 Gigabit Ethernet (40GbE) and 100 Gigabit Ethernet (100GbE) are groups of computer networking technologies for transmitting Ethernet frames at rates of 40 and 100 gigabits per second (Gbit/s), respectively. These technologies offer significantly ...

in speed and redundant sSupervisor modules, power supplies and fans. * The Cisco Catalyst 9400 Series is a chassis-based access and distribution switch family. This series can support interfaces up to

40 Gigabit Ethernet 40 Gigabit Ethernet (40GbE) and 100 Gigabit Ethernet (100GbE) are groups of computer networking technologies for transmitting Ethernet frames at rates of 40 and 100 gigabits per second (Gbit/s), respectively. These technologies offer significantly ...

in speed and redundant supervisor modules, power supplies and fans.Cisco Catalyst 9400 Series
/ref> * The Cisco Catalyst 6800 Series is a chassis-based switch family. This series can support interfaces up to

in speed and redundant supervisor modules. * The

Cisco Catalyst 6500 The Cisco Catalyst 6500 is a Modular computer network switch, modular chassis network switch manufactured by Cisco Systems from 1999 to 2015, capable of delivering speeds of up to "400 million packet (information technology), packets per second ...

Series is a chassis-based switch family. This series can support interfaces up to

in speed and redundant supervisor modules. * The Cisco Catalyst 4500 Series is a mid-range modular chassis network switch. The system comprises a chassis, power supplies, one or two supervisors, line cards and service modules. The Series includes the E-Series chassis and the Classic chassis which is manufactured in four sizes: ten-, seven-, six-, and three-slot.

End-of-life switches

Current switches

References

Cisco's Catalyst 6500 Remains the Network Switch to Beat

10-Gigabit Ethernet Poised To Take Data Centers By Storm
{{Cisco Systems

Catalyst Catalysis () is the process of increasing the rate of a chemical reaction by adding a substance known as a catalyst (). Catalysts are not consumed in the reaction and remain unchanged after it. If the reaction is rapid and the catalyst recyc ...