Cisco preps Catalyst 8500 switches

San Jose, Calif.

Cisco Systems, Inc.'s next-generation gigabit, multilayer LAN switches are close relatives of the company's existing gigabit switch routers, according to sources who were briefed by Cisco.

Cisco is expected to announce and ship some members of the Catalyst 8500 line before mid-year, sources said. The company is also expected to soon ship a new 13-slot, 20G bit/sec LightStream Layer 3 ATM/Gigabit Ethernet switch developed under the code name "Cougar" (NW, July 28, 1997, page 1).

The Catalyst 8500 rollout includes at least two models - a 13-slot chassis and a five-slot switch, sources said. One of the models in the Catalyst 8500 line is expected to resemble Cisco's 12000 Gigabit Switch Router (GSR). If so, it would feature a chassis that can hold up to five switching fabric and route processing cards, eight LAN modules, 10G to 40G bit/sec of bandwidth, and OC-3 and OC-12 ATM and packet interfaces.

The switch would also have enough bandwidth to support 40 Gigabit Ethernet ports and 400 Fast Ethernets. And Cisco claims the GSR can forward a minimum of 25 million packet/sec.

Cisco would not comment on the Catalyst 8500. Users are anxious to kick its tires, though.

"It's kind of a super combination of a Catalyst 5500 with a [Route Switch Module] and a GSR," said Rob Bowman, director of backbone engineering at Exodus Communications, Inc., an Internet server hosting and management company in Santa Clara, Calif. "It's a true Layer 3 LAN switch. It fits very well into our global plans of expanding our LAN and our WAN to higher speeds, which include Gigabit Ethernet in the LAN."

Exodus is expecting its field-trial units of the Catalyst 8500 in about two or three weeks, Bowman said. Layer 3 switching in the Catalyst 8500 is expected to be based on Cisco's Express Forwarding technology, which is used in the company's 12000 GSRs and the 7500 series routers. Express Forwarding places packet forwarding tables on each line card to perform fast destination lookups and conserve route processor CPU cycles.

Cisco recently announced Layer 3 switching for the Catalyst 5000 line that relies on the company's NetFlow caching technology (NW, Feb. 16, page 6).

NetFlow forwards 2 million packet/sec. Cisco also is developing Catalyst modules that can forward 20 million packet/sec, but it is unclear whether the 8500 line will support these.

What it will support, sources said, is multiprotocol routing and CiscoAssure software for policy-based networking. CiscoAssure, announced last week, allows Cisco users to assign quality-of-service policies to applications.

With the introduction of the Catalyst 8500, Cisco is expected to reposition its 7500 series routers and Catalyst 5500 LAN switches. Up to now, these products have been Cisco's high-end backbone devices.

But the Catalyst 5500 is expected to become a high-density wiring closet switch with Fast Ethernet and Gigabit Ethernet uplinks to the 8500. The 7500 now will be marketed as a route server that provides WAN access, sources said.

Analysts said Cisco will attempt to make the Catalyst 5500-to-8500 upgrade as painless as possible. "Let's just say that they don't want to do anything to jeopardize the whole Catalyst line," said one analyst who requested anonymity.