Cisco Catalyst 2960X-48LPS-L Switch

Features and Benefits:

Network Security

The Cisco Catalyst 2960-X Series Switches provide a range of security features to limit access to the network and mitigate threats, including:

• Cisco TrustSec uses SXP to simplify security and policy enforcement throughout the network. For more information about Cisco TrustSec security solutions, visit cisco.com/go/TrustSec.
• Comprehensive 802.1X Features to control access to the network, including Flexible Authentication, 802.1x Monitor Mode, and RADIUS Change of Authorization.
• IPv6 First-Hop Security enhances Layer-2 and Layer-3 network access from proliferating IPv6 devices especially BYOD devices. It protects against rogue router advertisements, address spoofing, fake DHCP replies and other risks introduced by IPv6 technology.
• Device Sensor and Device Classifier enable seamless versatile device profiles including BYOD devices. They also enable Cisco Identity Services Engine (ISE) to provision identity based security policies (ISE is supported in 2960-XR SKUs only).
• Cisco Trust Anchor Technology (TAT) enables easy distribution of a single universal image for all models of Catalyst 2960-X by verifying the authenticity of IOS images. This technology allows the switch to perform IOS integrity checks at boot-up by verifying the signature, verifying the Trusted Asset under Management (TAM) and authenticating the license.
• Cisco Threat Defense features including Port Security, Dynamic ARP Inspection, and IP Source Guard.
• Private VLANs restrict traffic between hosts in a common segment by segregating traffic at Layer 2, turning a broadcast segment into a nonbroadcast multi access like segment. This feature is available in IP-Lite feature set only. – Private VLAN Edge provides security and isolation between switch ports, which helps ensure that users cannot snoop on other users’ traffic.
• Unicast Reverse Path Forwarding (RPF) feature helps mitigate problems caused by the introduction of malformed or forged (spoofed) IP source addresses into a network by discarding IP packets that lack a verifiable IP source address. This feature is available in IP-Lite feature set only.
• Multidomain Authentication allows an IP phone and a PC to authenticate on the same switch port while placing them on appropriate voice and data VLAN.
• Access Control Lists for Pv6 and IPv4 for security and QoS ACEs.
  • VLAN ACLs on all VLANs prevent unauthorized data flows from being bridged within VLANs.
  • Router ACLs define security policies on routed interfaces for control-plane and data-plane traffic. IPv6 ACLs can be applied to filter IPv6 traffic.
  • Port-based ACLs for Layer 2 interfaces allow security policies to be applied on individual switch ports.
• Secure Shell (SSH) Protocol, Kerberos, and Simple Network Management Protocol Version 3 (SNMPv3) provide network security by encrypting administrator traffic during Telnet and SNMP sessions. SSH Protocol, Kerberos, and the cryptographic version of SNMPv3 require a special cryptographic software image because of U.S. export restrictions.
• Switched Port Analyzer (SPAN), with bidirectional data support, allows Cisco Intrusion Detection System (IDS) to take action when an intruder is detected.
• TACACS+ and RADIUS authentication facilitates centralized control of the switch and restricts unauthorized users from altering the configuration.
• MAC Address Notification allows administrators to be notified of users added to or removed from the network.
• Multilevel security on console access prevents unauthorized users from altering the switch configuration.
• Bridge protocol data unit (BPDU) Guard shuts down Spanning Tree Port Fast-enabled interfaces when BPDUs are received to avoid accidental topology loops.
• Spanning Tree Root Guard (STRG) prevents edge devices not in the network administrator’s control from becoming Spanning Tree Protocol root nodes.
• IGMP filtering provides multicast authentication by filtering out nonsubscribers and limits the number of concurrent multicast streams available per port.
• Dynamic VLAN assignment is supported through implementation of VLAN Membership Policy Server client capability to provide flexibility in assigning ports to VLANs. Dynamic VLAN facilitates the fast assignment of IP addresses.

Redundancy and Resiliency

Cisco Catalyst 2960-X Series Switches offer a number of redundancy and resiliency features to prevent outages and help ensure that the network remains available:

• Cross-stack EtherChannel provides the ability to configure Cisco EtherChannel technology across different members of the stack for high resiliency.
• Flexlink provides link redundancy with convergence time less than 100 milliseconds.
• IEEE 802.1s/w Rapid Spanning Tree Protocol (RSTP) and Multiple Spanning Tree Protocol (MSTP) provide rapid spanning-tree convergence independent of spanning-tree timers and also offer the benefit of Layer 2 load balancing and distributed processing. Stacked units behave as a single spanning-tree node.
• Per-VLAN Rapid Spanning Tree (PVRST+) allows rapid spanning-tree reconvergence on a per-VLAN spanning-tree basis, without requiring the implementation of spanning-tree instances.
• Cisco Hot Standby Router Protocol (HSRP) is supported to create redundant, fail safe routing topologies in 2960-XR IP-Lite SKUs.
• Switch-port auto-recovery (Error Disable) automatically attempts to reactivate a link that is disabled because of a network error.
• Power redundancy with an optional second power supply on 2960-XR models, or with an external RPS on 2960-X models.

Enhanced Quality of Service

The Cisco Catalyst 2960-X Series Switches offers intelligent traffic management that keeps everything flowing smoothly. Flexible mechanisms for marking, classification, and scheduling deliver superior performance for data, voice, and video traffic, all at wire speed. Primary QoS features include:

• Up to eight egress queues per port (four on the 2960-X or when stacking the 2960-XR) and strict priority queuing so that the highest priority packets are serviced ahead of all other traffic.
• Shaped Round Robin (SRR) scheduling and Weighted Tail Drop (WTD) congestion avoidance.
• Flow-based rate limiting and up to 256 aggregate or individual policers per port.
• 802.1p class of service (CoS) and Differentiated Services Code Point (DSCP) classification, with marking and reclassification on a per-packet basis by source and destination IP address, MAC address, or Layer 4 TCP/UDP port number.
• Cross-stack QoS to allow QoS to be configured across a stack of 2960-X series switches.
• The Cisco committed information rate (CIR) function provides bandwidth in increments as low as 8 Kbps.
• Rate limiting is provided based on source and destination IP address, source and destination MAC address, Layer 4 TCP/UDP information, or any combination of these fields, using QoS ACLs (IP ACLs or MAC ACLs), class maps, and policy maps.

Cisco FlexStack-Plus

Cisco FlexStack-Plus provides stacking of up to eight 2960-X switches with the optional FlexStack-Plus module.

The FlexStack-Plus module is hot-swappable and can be added to any Cisco Catalyst 2960-X or Catalyst 2960-XR with a FlexStack-Plus slot. Switches connected to a stack will automatically upgrade to the stack’s Cisco IOS Software version and transparently join the stack without additional intervention.

Cisco FlexStack-Plus and Cisco IOS Software offer true stacking, with all switches in a stack acting as a single switch unit. FlexStack-Plus provides a unified data plane, unified configuration, and single IP address for switch management. The advantages of true stacking include lower total cost of ownership and higher availability through simplified management as well as cross-stack features including EtherChannel, SPAN, and FlexLink.

To provide investment protection, FlexStack-Plus is backward-compatible with FlexStack. Cisco Catalyst 2960-X LAN Base switches equipped with a FlexStack-Plus module can be stacked with Catalyst 2960-S and 2960-SF LAN Base switches equipped with a FlexStack module.

Power Supply

The Catalyst 2960-X switches come with one fixed power supply and options for an external redundant power supply source (RPS2300).

The Catalyst 2960-XR switches support dual redundant power supplies. The Catalyst 2960-XR ships with one power supply by default. The second power supply can be purchased at the time of ordering the switch or as a spare. These power supplies have in-built fans to provide cooling.

Intelligent Power over Ethernet Plus

Cisco Catalyst 2960-Xseries switches support both IEEE 802.3af Power over Ethernet (PoE) and IEEE 802.3at PoE+ (up to 30W per port) to deliver lower total cost of ownership for deployments that incorporate Cisco IP phones, Cisco Aironet® wireless access points, or other standards-compliant PoE/PoE+ end devices. PoE removes the need to supply wall power to PoE-enabled devices and eliminates the cost of adding electrical cabling and circuits that would otherwise be necessary in IP phone and WLAN deployments. The Catalyst 2960-X series PoE power allocation is dynamic and power mapping scale up to a maximum of 740W PoE+ power.

Application Visibility

Catalyst 2960-X Series Switches support NetFlow Lite, which enables IT teams to understand the mix of traffic on their network and identify anomalies by capturing and recording specific packet flows. NetFlow Lite supports flexible sampling of the traffic, and exports flow data in the NetFlow Version 9 format for analysis on a wide range of Cisco and third-party collectors.

NetFlow Lite is included on all Catalyst 2960-X and 2960-XR LAN Base and IP Lite models.

Cisco Catalyst SmartOperations

Cisco Catalyst SmartOperations is a comprehensive set of capabilities that simplify LAN planning, deployment, monitoring, and troubleshooting. Deploying SmartOperations tools reduces the time and effort required to operate the network and lowers total cost of ownership (TCO).

• Cisco Smart Install services enable minimal-touch deployment by providing automated Cisco IOS Software image installation and configuration when new switches are connected to the network. This enables network administrators to remotely manage IOS image installs and upgrades.
• Cisco Auto SmartPorts services enable automatic configuration of switch ports as devices connect to the switch, with settings optimized for the device type resulting in zero-touch port-policy provisioning.
• Cisco Auto QoS is a service that automatic configuration of QoS that allows the switch to manage QoS policies based on traffic types resulting in zero-touch traffic engineering.
• Cisco Smart Troubleshooting is an extensive array of diagnostic commands and system health checks within the switch, including Smart Call Home. The Cisco GOLD® (Generic Online Diagnostics) and Cisco online diagnostics on switches in live networks help predicting and to detect failures faster.

Operational Simplicity Features

• Dynamic Host Configuration Protocol (DHCP) autoconfiguration of multiple switches through a boot server eases switch deployment.
• Stacking master configuration management and Cisco FlexStack Plus technology helps ensure that all switches are automatically upgraded when the master switch receives a new software version. Automatic software version checking and updating help ensure that all stack members have the same software version.
• Autonegotiation on all ports automatically selects half- or full-duplex transmission mode to optimize bandwidth.
• Dynamic Trunking Protocol (DTP) facilitates dynamic trunk configuration across all switch ports.
• Port Aggregation Protocol (PAgP) automates the creation of Cisco Fast EtherChannel® groups or Gigabit EtherChannel groups to link to another switch, router, or server.
• Link Aggregation Control Protocol (LACP) allows the creation of Ethernet channeling with devices that conform to IEEE 802.3ad. This feature is similar to Cisco EtherChannel technology and PAgP.
• Automatic media-dependent interface crossover (MDIX) automatically adjusts transmit and receive pairs if an incorrect cable type (crossover or straight-through) is installed.
• Unidirectional Link Detection Protocol (UDLD) and Aggressive UDLD allow unidirectional links caused by incorrect fiber-optic wiring or port faults to be detected and disabled on fiber-optic interfaces.
• Switching Database Manager (SDM) templates for access, routing, and VLAN deployment allow the administrator to easily maximize memory allocation to the desired features based on deployment-specific requirements.
• Local Proxy Address Resolution Protocol (ARP) works in conjunction with Private VLAN Edge to minimize broadcasts and maximize available bandwidth.
• VLAN1 minimization allows VLAN1 to be disabled on any individual VLAN trunk.
• Smart Multicast, with Cisco FlexStack-Plus technology, allows the Cisco Catalyst 2960-X Series to offer greater efficiency and support for more multicast data streams such as video by putting each data packet onto the backplane only once.
• Internet Group Management Protocol (IGMP) Snooping for IPv4 and IPv6 MLD v1 and v2 Snooping provide fast client joins and leaves of multicast streams and limit bandwidth-intensive video traffic to only the requestors.
• Multicast VLAN Registration (MVR) continuously sends multicast streams in a multicast VLAN while isolating the streams from subscriber VLANs for bandwidth and security reasons.
• Per-port broadcast, multicast, and unicast storm control prevents faulty end stations from degrading overall systems performance.
• Voice VLAN simplifies telephony installations by keeping voice traffic on a separate VLAN for easier administration and troubleshooting.
• Cisco VLAN Trunking Protocol (VTP) supports dynamic VLANs and dynamic trunk configuration across all switches.
• Remote Switch Port Analyzer (RSPAN) allows administrators to remotely monitor ports in a Layer 2 switch network from any other switch in the same network.
• For enhanced traffic management, monitoring, and analysis, the Embedded Remote Monitoring (RMON) software agent supports four RMON groups (history, statistics, alarms, and events).
• Layer 2 trace route eases troubleshooting by identifying the physical path that a packet takes from source to destination.
• Trivial File Transfer Protocol (TFTP) reduces the cost of administering software upgrades by downloading from a centralized location.
• Network Timing Protocol (NTP) provides an accurate and consistent timestamp to all intranet switches.

Power Management

The 2960-X switches offer a range industry-leading features for effective energy efficiency and energy management.

Switch Hibernation Mode (SHM) is an industry first and available on all 2960-X series switches. This feature puts the switch in ultra low power mode during periods of non-operation such as nights or weekends. Switch Hibernation Mode on the 2960-X switches can be scheduled using EnergyWise complaint management software.

IEEE 802.3az EEE (Energy Efficient Ethernet) enables ports to dynamically sense idle periods between traffic bursts and quickly switch the interfaces into a low power idle mode, reducing power consumption.

Cisco EnergyWise policies can be used to control the power consumed by PoE-powered endpoints, desktop and data-center IT equipment, and a wide range of building infrastructure. EnergyWise technology is included on all Cisco Catalyst 2960-X Series Switches.

Network Management

The Cisco Catalyst 2960-XSeries Switches offer a superior CLI for detailed configuration and administration. 2960-X Series Switches are also supported in the full range of Cisco network management solutions.

Cisco Prime Infrastructure
Cisco Prime™ network management solutions provide comprehensive network lifecycle management. Cisco Prime Infrastructure provides an extensive library of easy-to-use features to automate the initial and day-to-day management of your Cisco network. Cisco Prime integrates hardware and software platform expertise and operational experience into a powerful set of workflow-driven configuration, monitoring, troubleshooting, reporting, and administrative tools.

Cisco Network Assistant
A Cisco network management application designed for small and medium-sized business (SMB) networks with up to 250 users that runs on PCs, Tablets and even SmartPhones, Cisco Network Assistant offers centralized network management and configuration capabilities. This application also features an intuitive GUI where users can easily apply common services across Cisco switches, routers, and access points.

Security Management

Cisco Identity Services Engine (ISE) support enables the 2960-XR switches to offer security management for all devices connected to it.