Cisco bolsters Catalyst 5500 line

The latest additions to Cisco Systems' Catalyst 5500 LAN switch line are designed to help users take advantage of gigabit speeds without uprooting existing Ethernet infrastructures.

As expected, Cisco last week announced a nine-slot version of the Catalyst switch that fills out the mid-range of the company's flagship LAN switching line.

Cisco also rolled out a dedicated traffic analyser module for managing Catalyst 5500 networks.

The nine-slot Catalyst 5509 is designed to meet high-density 10/100Mbps and Gigabit Ethernet wiring closet requirements. It fits between the five-port Catalyst 5505 wiring closet device and 13-slot Catalyst 5500 backbone switch.

The Catalyst 5509 runs all of the LAN and ATM switching modules that currently run in the Catalyst 5500 line, including the 3.6Gbps Supervisor III switching engine. But the 5509 differs from others in the 5500 line in that its backplane delivers 3.6Gbps to each slot instead of isolating the 3.6Gbps in the switching engine.

Finally, Cisco introduced an OC-3 MPOA card for the Catalyst 5000, complementing the company's previously announced OC-12 MPOA card. These cards allow Catalyst 5500 switches to function as MPOA clients in an ATM network by switching multiprotocol traffic over ATM virtual circuits. Both cards are shipping now.

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