Cisco ME 6500 Series Ethernet Switches

• 24 Gigabit Ethernet Small Form-Factor Pluggable (SFP) downlinks and 8 Gigabit Ethernet SFP uplinks, with redundant AC or DC power supplies

• 24 Ethernet 10/100/1000 downlinks and 8 Gigabit Ethernet uplinks, with redundant AC or DC power supplies

Figure 1. Cisco ME 6524 Fiber Configuration

Advantages

Scalability and Flexibility

• Operational efficiency for Ethernet access and aggregation networks requiring small compact form factor with lower power consumption.

• Performance is optimized for enterprise network deployments with 32-Gbps switching capacity and 15 mpps for IP traffic.

• High-density Gigabit Ethernet support: With up to 32 Gigabit Ethernet ports, either copper or fiber, the Cisco ME 6524 can aggregate fiber-to-the-x (FTTx) or multidwelling units that require Gigabit Ethernet connectivity.

• High-performance CPU for Layer 2 and Layer 3 protocols provides convergence and stability.

• Optimized switching capabilities and scalable IP routing/MPLS functionalities are delivered in hardware without performance effect (Table 1).

Table 1. [[NOTE: Please provide table title.]]

• The Cisco ME 6524 supports a broad range of connectivity options by offering 10/100/1000, Gigabit Ethernet SFP, and coarse wavelength-division multiplexing (CWDM) and dense wavelength-division multiplexing (DWDM) optics on the uplink interfaces.

• Enhanced service richness by supporting standard-based Layer 2/Layer 3 and MPLS service enablers, such as access ports, 802.1Q trunk ports, hardware-enabled 802.1Q Tunneling and VLAN Translation, Layer 2 Tunneling Protocol, hardware-enabled MPLS VPNs, and Ethernet over MPLS (EoMPLS).

• Support for H-VPLS architecture, with Layer 2 access and MPLS access network.

Security

• Industry-leading integrated security: The Cisco ME 6524 offers a comprehensive set of security features to mitigate denial of service (DoS) attacks to the enterprise network and to safeguard their network resources.

• Memory protection, fault containment, and improved scalability through dedicated TCAMs for Netflow, access control lists (ACLs), security, and QoS deployments.

• Protect the enterprise network by enabling Control Plane Policing and Hardware Rate limiters

• Flexible mechanisms to safeguard enterprise's MAC table and optimize MAC learning, through Port Security and Per-VLAN MAC learning/ limiting.

• Protect enterprise's CPU through Port/VLAN/ MAC-based ACLs enabled in hardware.

• Protection from unauthorized end users through 802.1x, Dynamic Host Configuration Protocol (DHCP) Snooping, Dynamic ARP Inspection.

• Network protection and traffic isolation through Private VLAN.

Service Availability

• Redundant 400W AC or DC power supplies, field replaceable and hot-swappable to minimize service outage in case of a power supply failure.

• Improved Layer 2 fast convergence over hub-and-spoke topologies by enabling Flexlink, to obviate the need for Spanning Tree Protocol.

• Optimized Layer 2 fast convergence by enabling IEEE 802.1w (RSTP) and IEEE 802.1s (MSTP).

• Increased resiliency in MPLS deployments by supporting MPLS Traffic Engineering and Fast Reroute (FRR) QoS and Multicast.

• Advanced QoS mechanism allows concurrent triple-play and VPN services.

• Flexible policing functionalities classify and rate-limit subscriber's traffic based on port, VLAN, and port + VLAN information.

• Layer 3 per-port egress policing allows the delivery of multipoint services with tight SLA requirements.

• Intelligent queuing mechanism helps ensure that the highest-priority data gets services ahead of other traffic.

• Shaped Round Robin (SRR) enhances the scheduling algorithm by shaping the traffic that egresses each queue.

• Hardware-accelerated multicast protocols enable efficient and scalable video application delivery throughout the enterprise. Protocols such as Protocol Independent Multicast (PIM), PIM Sparse Mode (PIM-SM), Internet group Management Protocol (IGMP), and IGMP Snooping and advance QoS allow scaling of video, voice, and data deployments.

Applications

• Key service enablers are hardware-enabled multicast protocols for an intelligent video distribution, security features to isolate subscriber traffic streams and to protect against malicious user attacks, QoS features to concurrently support multiple classes of service and prioritize traffic that is sensitive to drops, delays, and jitter (Figure 2).

Figure 2. Layer 2 and Layer 3 VPNs

• Layer 2 VPNs are delivered over a pure Layer 2 infrastructure or over hardware-accelerated EoMPLS tunnels.

• MPLS VPN hardware is scalable for greater service breadth and network flexibility (Figure 3).

Figure 3. Hierarchical Virtual Private LAN (H-VPLS)

• EoMPLS VC Type 4 or VC Type 5, MPLS EXP bit marking, and MPLS TE and FRR enhance flexibility in H-VPLS deployments while strengthening QoS and resiliency.

Ordering Information

Table 2. Ordering Information

Additional Products

• Cisco ME 6524 Ethernet Switch http://www.cisco.com/en/US/products/ps6845/index.html

• Cisco Catalyst 6500 Series http://www.cisco.com/en/US/products/hw/switches/ps708/index.html