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Cisco Catalyst 4500 Series Switches

Cisco Catalyst 4500 Series Switches for FTTx Deployments

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Optimal Control for Voice, Video, and Data Services

Product Overview

The Cisco® Catalyst® 4500 Series switches with integrated resiliency and superior service intelligence are designed to deliver residential and business services for fiber-to-the-x (FTTx) deployments. These switches offer high-density Fast and Gigabit Ethernet for both fiber and copper combined with mechanisms for per-subscriber traffic management, security, performance, quality of service (QoS), and flexible management. The Cisco Catalyst 4500 Series also offers nonblocking switching in Layers 2 through 4 with integrated resiliency, further enhancing control of "triple-play" (voice, video, and data metro services) and business services.
The Cisco Catalyst 4500 Series includes four Cisco Catalyst chassis: the Cisco Catalyst 4510R+E Switch (10 slots), the Cisco Catalyst 4507R+E Switch (7 slots), Cisco Catalyst 4506E Switch (6 slots), and Cisco Catalyst 4503E Switch (3 slots). The 10 and 7 slot chassis also a -E version, referred to as Cisco Catalyst 4510R-E Switch (10 slots), the Cisco Catalyst 4507R-E Switch (7 slots) respectively. Integrated resiliency enhancements offered in the Cisco Catalyst 4500 Series include 1+1 supervisor-engine redundancy (7 slot and 10 slot chassis), software-based fault tolerance, and 1+1 power-supply redundancy. Integrated resiliency in both hardware and software minimizes network downtime, helping to ensure profitable services.
Compatible with all Cisco Catalyst 4500 Series line cards and supervisor engines, the Cisco Catalyst 4500 Series reduces the total cost of ownership (TCO) by minimizing recurring operating expenses and improving return on investment (ROI).
With the superior service intelligence of the Cisco Catalyst 4500 Series, network operators can adopt a flexible, service -oriented approach for delivering profitable and differentiated residential broadband and business services. Network operators can extend control and intelligence to large and small sites in the FTTx access network. The Cisco FTTx portfolio encompasses a variety of routing, switching, and optical products and a range of technologies, including In Service Software Upgrade (ISSU), Connectivity Fault Management (CFM), and support for short and longer distance optics.
Figure 1 shows the portfolio of Cisco Catalyst 4500 Series Switches for Metro Ethernet networks.

Figure 1. Cisco Catalyst 4500 Series Switches for Metro Ethernet Networks

The Ethernet Advantage In Access Network

Because of the cost, speed, and flexibility advantages of Ethernet, service providers are considering Metro Ethernet as a connectivity option for their business and residential customers. Enterprise customers are asking providers to standardize on Ethernet as the User-Network Interface (UNI) everywhere on their networks to reduce expenses. Ethernet is familiar to enterprise customers and their IT staffs. It can scale to deliver bandwidth up to 1 Gbps to support demanding applications, and its bandwidth can be tailored to deliver performance that meets the needs of specific business applications. Providers of residential Internet, voice over IP (VoIP), and video services can also take advantage of this flexibility using advanced security and rich QoS capabilities delivered on the Cisco Catalyst 4500 Series through sophisticated control features of Cisco IOS® Software and specialized hardware. Whether in FTTx access or aggregation, Ethernet technology offers the most effective transport for service requirements today and in the future. By offering Ethernet-based services that can support more advanced applications, service providers can differentiate their offerings from competitors, increase their profit margins, and improve their revenue potential over the long term.

Optimal Control

The Cisco Catalyst 4500 Series provides FTTx access networks, optimal control from managing networks to subscriber security and service differentiation. The Cisco Catalyst 4500 Series delivers this control with the following:

• Integrated resiliency: Network downtime is minimized with redundant supervisor-engine capability (on the Cisco Catalyst 4500, 7 slot and 10 slot chassis), 1 + 1 power-supply redundancy, and software-based fault tolerance across the Cisco Catalyst 4500 Series. ISSU, in combination with Nonstop Forwarding with Stateful Switchover (NSF/SSO), offers continuous data packet forwarding during switchover. With time-sensitive traffic, including voice and video, running over the FTTx access network, integrated resiliency is essential for improving customer satisfaction and maintaining profitability.

• Sophisticated QoS: Integrated QoS and traffic-management capabilities based on Layers 2 through 4 classify and prioritize mission-critical and time-sensitive traffic based on 64,000 QoS classification entries per direction. The Cisco Catalyst 4500 Series can shape and rate-limit bandwidth-intensive traffic with mechanisms such as input and output policers based on host, network, and application information. Other QoS mechanisms such as 802.1p and 3-Color Rate Limiting can be deployed. The QoS mechanisms are delivered with no effect on performance.

• Predictable performance: The Cisco Catalyst 4500 Series offers up to a 250-million packets per second (mpps) wire-speed forwarding rate in hardware for traffic in Layers 2 through 4. Switching performance is independent of the number of route entries, QoS mechanisms enabled, and active VLANs. FTTx access networks need to respond reliably and quickly to meet end customer service-level agreements (SLAs).

• Advanced network security: The Cisco Catalyst 4500 Series supports up to 64,000 wire-rate Layer 2 through 4 access-list entries; Dynamic Host Configuration Protocol (DHCP) interface tracker (option 82) for subscriber tracking; DHCP Snooping to prevent malicious or misconfigured DHCP servers; Port Security to prevent MAC flooding attacks; Dynamic ARP Inspection (DAI) to add further security to Address Resolution Protocol (ARP) and IP Source Guard; and other advanced security capabilities such as user authentication, client security, and control-plane policing.

Scalable Service-Oriented Architecture

The modular architecture of the Cisco Catalyst 4500 Series provides the scalability and flexibility to grow the network as a provider's service portfolio and customer requirements evolve. With up to 4096 VLANs and private VLANs, service providers can easily address mixed networks with both residential and business customers. The switches can be configured for high-density access with up to 384 10-, 100-, or 1000-Mbps interfaces, or for gigabit aggregation with 120 unshared Gigabit Ethernet ports. In addition, the Cisco Catalyst 4500 Series, with the Cisco Catalyst 4503E, Catalyst 4506E, Catalyst 4507R+E, and Catalyst 4510R+E, offers different entry points for deployments in low- and high-volume customer environments. The 10-slot Cisco Catalyst 4500 is especially ideal for higher-density deployments with support for up to 384 fiber or copper ports and increased high availability with 1 + 1 redundant supervisor-engine support with subminute failover time.

Cisco Catalyst 4500 Series Benefits

The Cisco Catalyst 4500 Series provides advanced, high-performance solutions for service-led FTTx access networks. Benefits include:

• Performance: The low-latency, centralized, shared-memory switching-fabric architecture of the Cisco Catalyst 4500 Series delivers leading-edge, high-performance Layer 2 and Layer 3 capabilities. Delivering advanced switching solutions that scale bandwidth as ports are added, the Cisco Catalyst 4500 Series is powered by leading-edge, application-specific integrated circuit (ASIC) technology that offers wire-speed Layer 2 and Layer 3 10/100 or gigabit switching. Offering modular supervisor-engine flexibility with complete line-card compatibility, Layer 2 switching can scale up to 320 Gbps or 250 Mpps. Any combination of Cisco Catalyst 4500 Series switches and supervisor engines can be deployed with no degradation of forwarding performance with all QoS and security features enabled, making the Cisco Catalyst 4500 Series the platform for mission-critical applications.

• Scalability: The Cisco Catalyst 4500 Series meets network-subscriber connectivity requirements of up to 384 copper or fiber Fast Ethernet or Gigabit Ethernet ports in a chassis. The Cisco Catalyst 4500 Series supports density requirements for both business and residential service environments. These switches offer network operators who are building next-generation access networks flexibility in fiber options by supporting all types of fiber deployments (single and dual strands). With the support of the single strand of fiber, network operators can reduce the fiber requirement by 50 percent, providing significant savings in fiber, cable management, and other installation costs as well as long-term operating expenses.

• Redundancy: The Cisco Catalyst 4500, 7 slot and 10 slot chassis support 1 + 1 supervisor-engine redundancy for integrated resiliency. Redundant supervisor engines help ensure that network downtime is minimized. Minimal network downtime facilitates reduced operating expenses and increased customer satisfaction. The Cisco Catalyst 4500 Series supports redundant power supplies in all chassis types. The Cisco Catalyst 4500 IOS Software supports ISSU, enabling software, line-card upgrades without affecting service for subscribers.

• Service-oriented software services: The Cisco Catalyst 4500 Series provides a wide range of software services that allow service providers to deliver residential and business services based on subscriber requirements. Key features include:

– Advanced security: Enabling security features such as DHCP Snooping, access control lists (ACLs), Secure Shell (SSH) Protocol, Port Security, Control Plane Policing, DAI, IP Source Guard, and Private VLANs (PVLANs) on the Cisco Catalyst 4500 Series enhances control and flexibility in the network. By enabling these features selectively or collectively, a network administrator can prevent unauthorized access to the network, prevent hackers from disrupting services, and prevent a deliberate or accidental broadcast storm.

– Video services: Protocol Independent Multicast (PIM), dense and sparse mode, Internet Group Management Protocol (IGMP), IGMP Snooping, proxy reporting, Multicast Listener Discovery (MLD) v1 and v2, and Cisco Group Management Protocol provide for efficient standards-based and Cisco product-enhanced broadcast video service deployment without compromising performance. Source Specific Multicast (SSM) and SSM Mapping (mapping IGMPv2 joins to Source Specific PIM joins) provide additional scale and control of multicast.

– Cisco IOS Software network services: The Cisco Catalyst 4500 Series takes advantage of more than 10 years of development with large-scale deployments across the entire world, to provide mature Layer 2 and Layer 3 features that allow service providers to differentiate their services and meet SLAs.

• Intelligent management capability: The Cisco Catalyst 4500 Series supports a variety of management options suited for managing service provider networks, such as Cisco IOS Embedded Event Manager (EEM), Cisco Generic Online Diagnostics (GOLD), NetFlow, and Smart Call Home. With EEM and GOLD, network operators can design scripts based on their specific requirements to troubleshoot the network. With Smart Call Home, the Cisco IOS Software on the Cisco Catalyst switch automatically detects problems in the network and automatically collects the required debug information and logs a trouble ticket. With NetFlow, statistics about the network can be captured in hardware for flow- and VLAN-based statistics monitoring. This data can be exported, collected, and analyzed for network traffic accounting, usage-based network billing, network planning, network monitoring, and data-mining capabilities.

• Investment protection: The flexible modular architecture of the Cisco Catalyst 4500 Series provides cost-effective interface upgrades for access and aggregation deployments. Customers deploying the Cisco Catalyst 4500 Series with Supervisor Engine IV or V models who desire higher performance and enhanced features on all system ports can easily upgrade to the Supervisor Engine 6E or 6L-E model without replacing existing line cards and wiring. Customers requiring redundancy can upgrade to Cisco Catalyst 4507R+E or Catalyst 4510R+E chassis and take advantage of all the line cards and supervisor engines. Compatible sparing between Cisco Catalyst 4503E, Catalyst 4506E, Catalyst 4507R+E, and Catalyst 4510R+E Series chassis provides commonality of power supplies and switching line cards, lowering the overall deployment, migration, and support costs.

Applications

One Network for All Types of Customers

With Cisco FTTx solutions, no compromise is needed when building your next-generation broadband network. One network can offer a full range of business services to businesses of all sizes, and triple-play services (voice, video, and data) to residential consumers. Based on available infrastructure and existing revenue streams, service providers have the flexibility to choose the appropriate access method. Networks built with Cisco equipment deliver consistent services and security across any access media-asymmetric DSL (ADSL), very-high-bit-rate DSL (VDSL), passive optical network (PON), fiber to a building basement, or fiber directly to the customer.
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Figure 2. Next-Generation FTTx Network

Figure 2 shows a typical example of a next-generation broadband network. The Cisco Catalyst 4500 Series directly connects customers with fiber or aggregates them through DSL and PON. The Cisco 7600 Series Router forwards the residential traffic to Internet and voice gateways and business traffic to the core network for connectivity to other business sites. Per-VLAN, per-flow, and per-traffic-type management on the Cisco Catalyst 4500 Series and Cisco 7600 Series simplify delivery of Layer 2 and Layer 3 VPN services with residential voice, video, and data.

For More Information

For more information about the Cisco Catalyst 4500 Series switches, including important features, configuration alternatives, product specifications, and ordering information, please refer to the Cisco Catalyst 4500 Series data sheet at http://www.cisco.com/go/catalyst4500 or contact your local Cisco account representative.