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Table Of Contents
Cisco Supervisor Engine 720 Deployment Scenarios
Cisco Supervisor Engine 720 Features
Supervisor Engine 720 Architecture
Multi-layer Switch Feature Card 3 (MSFC3)
Switch Fabric Module Architecture
Switch Fabric Module Architecture
How Cisco Express Forwarding Works
How Accelerated Cisco Express Forwarding (aCEF) Works
How Distributed Cisco Express Forwarding (dCEF) Works
Electromagnetic Emissions Certifications
Additional Cisco Catalyst 6500 Series Information
Data Sheet
Cisco Catalyst 6500 Series
Supervisor Engine 720
As Cisco's premier modular multilayer switch, the Catalyst® 6500 Series delivers secure, converged services from the wiring closet to the core, to the data center, to the WAN edge.
Providing support for the Catalyst 6500's third-generation suite of modules, the Supervisor Engine 720 delivers advanced IP services and increased port densities for enterprise and service provider networks (Figure 1). Supervisor engine 720 sets the standard for IP communications and application delivery in enterprise campus and service provider multilayer switched networks by maximizing user productivity, and enhancing operational control across all Catalyst 6500 Series interfaces, including new high density switched multi-gigabit interfaces. Additionally, the Supervisor Engine 720 provides investment protection for current Catalyst 6500 deployments by supporting all existing modules and enabling new applications.
The new Catalyst 6500 Supervisor Engine 720 integrates a high performance 720 Gbps switch fabric backplane with a new routing and forwarding engine, including a third generation policy feature card (PFC3) in a single module. Additionally, the Supervisor 720 builds on the proven Cisco Express Forwarding (CEF) architecture, by supporting centralized forwarding (CEF), distributed forwarding (dCEF) and, now, accelerated CEF (aCEF) to provide a highly scalable and cost-effective platform that is ideal for high performance backbone and data center environments.
Supervisor Engine 720 delivers the scalable-performance, intelligence, and broad selection of features to address the most demanding service provider and enterprise deployment requirements for building modular, resilient, scalable, secure, multilayer switching solutions. The new Supervisor Engine 720 is ideally suited for high performance core, data center and metro Ethernet deployments with its scalable performance of up to 400 million packets per second using a 720Gbps switch fabric. And the widely deployed Supervisor Engine 1A and Supervisor Engine 2 are used in wiring closets, distribution/core, data center and WAN edge configurations enabling the seamless integration of advanced services such as security, voice and content into a converged network that reduces the total cost of ownership.
By sharing a common set of interfaces, operating system and management tools, the Catalyst 6500 Series supervisors provide operational consistency—enabling common sparing and minimizing training requirements; all modules feature predictable performance and a broad range of capabilities. Supervisor Engine 720 highlights include:
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New services and capabilities for enterprise and service provider deployments—Features enhanced QoS mechanisms with additional per-port queues; hardware-based GRE tunneling, and NAT; and high performance hardware-accelerated MPLS-based services
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As part of the Cisco Catalyst 6500 Series of modular products, the Cisco Supervisor Engine 720 (Figure 1) works interchangeably in all chassis and shares a common operating system and command-line interface—encouraging an end-to-end Cisco Catalyst 6500 Series solution for maximum operational consistency, common sparing, and minimized training requirements.
Figure 1
Cisco Supervisor Engine 720
Cisco Supervisor Engine 720 Deployment Scenarios
With a broad range of interfaces, and services modules, chassis/slot configurations as well as a scalable set of Supervisor Engines, the Catalyst 6500 can be deployed anywhere in the network. Figure 2 depicts the Catalyst 6500 deployed in the wiring closet, distribution, core, data center, WAN edge and Metro and provides recommended supervisor engines for each part of the network.
Figure 2
Cisco Supervisor Engine 720 Deployment Scenarios
Table 1 outlines key deployment scenarios for the Cisco Catalyst 6500 Series supervisor engines.
Cisco Supervisor Engine 720 Features
The Cisco Supervisor Engine 720 provides the following features:
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High Availability
The Cisco Supervisor Engine 720 can be deployed in dual-supervisor configurations in all Cisco Catalyst 6500 Series chassis (6503, 6506, 6509, 6509-NEB, 6509-NEB-A, and 6513). The dual-supervisor configuration synchronizes protocol states between the primary and the redundant supervisor engine, provides industry-leading network availability with sub-3-second failover, and maximizes network uptime by allowing hot-swapping of standby supervisor engines. Important high-availability features include:
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Scalable Performance
The Cisco Supervisor Engine 720 provides scalable performance—up to 400 Mpps with 720 Gbps bandwidth—which is required in high-throughput network cores and data centers with multigigabit trunks.
The Supervisor Engine 720 uses the Cisco Express Forwarding routing architecture, which performs high-speed lookups even with advanced Layer 2-4 services enabled and independent of the number of flows through the switch providing up to 400 Mpps of forwarding performance.
For details, see Table 2—Supervisor Engine Feature Comparison.
Wire-Rate Traffic Management
The Supervisor Engine 720 provides wire-rate traffic management using Layer 2-4 quality of service (QoS) as well as security checks, including access-control-list (ACL) policy enforcement, as part of its forwarding process to protect and secure content. These traffic-management features enable efficient handling of converged networks that carry a mix of mission-critical, time-sensitive, and bandwidth-intensive multimedia applications.
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For details, see Table 3—QoS Features Comparison.
End-to-End Management Tools
Managed with CiscoWorks, Cisco Catalyst 6500 Series switches can be configured and managed to deliver end-to-end device, VLAN, traffic, and policy management. Cisco Resource Manager, a Web-based management tool that works with CiscoWorks, provides: automated inventory collection, software deployment, easy tracking of network changes, views into device availability, and quick isolation of error conditions.
The Supervisor Engine 720 provides a comprehensive set of management tools to provide the required visibility and control in the network.
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For details, see Table 4—Management Tools Comparison.
Comprehensive Security
The advanced security capabilities of the Supervisor Engine 720 can reduce the threat of malicious network attacks while enabling authentication, authorization, and accounting (AAA). With support for up to 32K ACL entries and advanced features such as port security, the Supervisor Engine 720 offers an unmatched set of Layer 2-4 network traffic security capabilities:
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For details, see Table 5—Security Features Comparison.
Advanced Layer 2-4 Forwarding
The Supervisor Engine 720 provides the advanced Layer 2-4 features that network designers require to build advanced network designs:
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For details, see Table 6—Layer 3 Switching Feature Comparison.
Supervisor Engine 720 Architecture
Cisco Catalyst 6500 Series supervisor engines 1A, 2, and 720 manage the system: storing and running the system software, controlling the various modules in the chassis, performing Layer 2-4 forwarding, and providing the gigabit uplinks that allow redundant supervisor connections.
The Supervisor Engine 720 enables multiple forwarding architectures, including distributed Cisco Express Forwarding (dCEF) and accelerated Cisco Express Forwarding (aCEF) in addition to Cisco Express Forwarding (CEF). As Table 2 illustrates, the Supervisor Engine 720 offers significant improvements in operating characteristics.
The Supervisor Engine 720's Policy Feature Card 3 (PFC3) and Multilayer Switch Feature Card 3 (MSFC3) daughter cards provide the following functions:
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Policy Feature Card3 (PFC3)
The Policy Feature Card provides quality of service (QoS) and policy based intelligent networking capabilities to the Catalyst 6500 Series. Recommended for premier wiring closets, backbone, data center and WAN edge deployments, the PFC identifies and classifies traffic applying the appropriate QoS priority level and Security Policies as defined by the network administrator configured ACLs. The PFC also helps to prevent unauthorized applications from being allowed on the network.
The Supervisor Engine 720's PFC3 makes the packet-forwarding decision in its application-specific integrated circuit (ASIC) complex. In distributed forwarding implementations, an identical ASIC complex located on an interface module (DFC3 daughter card) allows the interface module to make packet-forwarding decisions locally. After the PFC3 or DFC3 makes the forwarding decision for the interface module, it forwards the packets with full L2-4 policy applied In addition to packet forwarding, the PFC3 performs the following major functions at wire rate:
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Quality of Service
Table 3 compares the QoS features of Supervisor Engine 720 with other Cisco Catalyst 6500 Series supervisor engines.
Management Tools
Table 4 compares the management tools of the Supervisor Engine 720 with other Cisco Catalyst 6500 Series supervisor engines.
Table 4 Management Tools Comparison
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Security
Table 5 compares the security features of the Supervisor Engine 720 with other Cisco Catalyst 6500 Series supervisor engines.
Multi-layer Switch Feature Card 3 (MSFC3)
Layer 2-4 Switching
Table 6 compares the Layer 3 switching features of the Supervisor Engine 720 with those of other Cisco Catalyst 6500 Series supervisor engines.
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Switch Fabric
Designed to support distributed forwarding for interface modules that have distributed forwarding capability, the onboard switch fabric in Cisco Catalyst Supervisor Engine 720 boosts the overall performance of the system by increasing available bandwidth to 720 Gbps and packet forwarding rates up to 400 Mpps.
Switch Fabric Module Architecture
Providing access to the switch fabric via dual 20 Gbps serial channels, the Supervisor 720 performs all switching on the module independent of the passive backplane. The Supervisor 720's on-board switch fabric uses a 3X over-speed architecture to perform highly efficient packet forwarding for unicast, broadcast, and multicast traffic.
By using auto-sensing and auto-negotiation, the Supervisor 720 switch fabric is fully interoperable with the 8- and 16-Gbps switch fabric interconnections used by the CEF256 and dCEF256 modules. When a CEF256 or dCEF256 module is detected, the switch fabric will automatically connect those modules by offering 8-16Gbps of bandwidth to each module, as applicable.
Support for High-Bandwidth Applications
The Supervisor 720 switch fabric architecture, coupled with multicast replication performed in hardware on Supervisor 720 and on interface modules with DFCs, handles high-bandwidth interactive and broadcast video applications without any performance penalty.
Switch Fabric Module Architecture
Providing 40-Gbps per-slot bandwidth to the system, the Supervisor Engine 720 performs all switching on the module independent of the passive chassis backplane.
High Availability
Two Supervisor Engine 720s can be configured in a system providing a high-availability switch fabric, allowing the system to failover to the switch fabric of the secondary Supervisor Engine 720 and providing protection for mission-critical applications (Figure 3).
When installed in a redundant configuration, failover time between switch fabrics occurs in a few seconds and the full 720 Gbps system bandwidth remains available even following the failure of the active switch fabric module. This high availability feature minimizes the impact of outages on mission-critical applications in different network environments. In a single switch-fabric configuration with modules supporting both bus and high performance switch fabric interfaces, the system can fail over to the 32-Gbps backplane bus if the switch fabric fails, providing a highly available platform to host mission-critical applications.
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Switch Fabric-to-Interface Module Connection - Redundant Supervisor Engine 720 Configuration
Supervisor Engine 720
Suited for deployment in the distribution/core and the data center, the Supervisor Engine 720 supports all Cisco Catalyst 6500 Series interface module classes (Classic, CEF256, dCEF256, aCEF720, and dCEF720) while providing the following operational advantages:
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Figure 4
Cisco Catalyst 6500 Series Supervisor Engine 720
How Cisco Express Forwarding Works
Cisco Express Forwarding (CEF) is a Layer 3 technology that provides increased forwarding scalability and performance to handle many short-duration traffic flows common in today's enterprise and service provider networks. To meet the needs of environments handling large amounts of short-flow, Web-based, or highly interactive types of traffic, CEF forwards all packets in hardware, and maintains its forwarding rate completely independent of the number of flows going though the switch.
On the Cisco Catalyst 6500 Series, the CEF Layer 3 forwarding engine is located centrally on the supervisor engine's PFC2 or PFC3—the same device that performs hardware-based Layer 2 and 3 forwarding, ACL checking, QoS policing and marking, and NetFlow statistics gathering.
Using the routing table that Cisco IOS Software builds to define configured interfaces and routing protocols, the CEF architecture creates CEF tables and downloads them into the hardware-forwarding engine before any user traffic is sent through the switch. The CEF architecture places only the routing prefixes in its CEF tables—the only information it requires to make the Layer 3 forwarding decisions—relying on the routing protocols to do route selection. By performing a simple CEF table lookup, the switch forwards packets at wire-rate, independent of the number of flows transiting the switch.
CEF-based forwarding requirements: Requires a Cisco Catalyst Supervisor Engine 2 or Catalyst Supervisor Engine 720.
How Accelerated Cisco Express Forwarding (aCEF) Works
Accelerated Cisco Express Forwarding (aCEF) technology uses two forwarding engines working together in a master-slave relationship to accelerate high-rate traffic flows through the switch—a central CEF engine located on the Supervisor Engine 720's PFC3 and a scaled-down distributed aCEF engine located on the interface module.
The central PFC3 makes the initial forwarding decision, with the aCEF engine storing the result and making subsequent packet-forwarding decisions locally. aCEF forwarding works like this:
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How Distributed Cisco Express Forwarding (dCEF) Works
With Distributed Cisco Express Forwarding (dCEF), forwarding engines located on the interface modules make forwarding decisions locally and in parallel, allowing the Cisco Catalyst 6500 Series to achieve the highest forwarding rates in the industry. With dCEF, forwarding occurs on the interface modules in parallel and system performance scales up to 400 Mpps—the aggregate of all forwarding engines working together.
Using the same ASIC engine design as the central PFCx, DFCs located on the interface modules forward packets between two ports, directly or across the switch fabric, without involving the supervisor engine (Figure 5). With the DFC, each interface module has a dedicated forwarding engine complete with the full forwarding tables. dCEF forwarding works like this:
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Figure 5
Distributed Cisco Express Forwarding Packet Flow
dCEF-based forwarding requirements: Requires a Cisco Catalyst Supervisor Engine 720 for dCEF720 interface modules; requires either a Catalyst Supervisor Engine 720 or a Catalyst Supervisor Engine 2-MSFC2 and a SFM for dCEF256 interface modules.
Software Requirements
The Supervisor Engine 720 can be used with one of the following operating systems:
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Ordering Information
Table 7 lists the ordering information for Supervisor Engine 720.
Dimensions
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Environmental Conditions
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Safety Certifications
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Electromagnetic Emissions Certifications
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Technical Support Services
Whether your company is a large organization, a commercial business, or a service provider, Cisco Systems® is committed to maximizing the return on your network investment. Cisco offers a portfolio of Technical Support Services to ensure that your Cisco products operate efficiently, remain highly available, and benefit from the most up-to-date system software.
Cisco Technical Support Services offers the following features, which provide network investment protection and minimal downtime for systems running mission-critical applications:
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For more information visit:
http://www.cisco.com/en/US/products/svcs/ps3034/serv_category_home.html
Additional Cisco Catalyst 6500 Series Information
For additional information about the Cisco Catalyst 6500 Series, supervisor engines, interface modules, SFM, and services modules, visit:
http://www.cisco.com/en/US/products/hw/switches/ps708/products_data_sheets_list.html
Posted: Sun Feb 5 23:18:50 PST 2006
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