Description
The Cisco 500 Series Stackable Managed Switches are a new line of stackable managed Ethernet switches that provide the advanced capabilities you need to support a more demanding network environment, at an affordable price. These switches provide 24 or 48 ports of Fast Ethernet and 24 to 52 ports of Gigabit Ethernet connectivity with optional 10 Gigabit uplinks, providing a solid foundation for your current business applications, as well as those you are planning for the future. At the same time, these switches are easy to deploy and manage, without a large IT staff.
Features
- 48 Ports
- Switch
- L3
- managed
- 48 x 10/100/1000 + 4 x 10 Gigabit SFP+
- rack-mountable
Cisco 500 Series switches are designed to protect your technology investment as your business grows. Unlike switches that claim to be stackable but have elements which are administered and troubleshot separately, the Cisco 500 Series provides true stacking capability, allowing you to configure, manage, and troubleshoot multiple physical switches as a single device and more easily expand your network. The Cisco 500 Series switch offer models which are fanless making it one of the industry's first in stackable switches, thereby delivering increased reliability, power efficiency, and minimizing noise.
A true stack delivers a unified data and control plane, in addition to management plane, providing flexibility, scalability, and ease of use since the stack of units operate as a single entity constituting all the ports of the stack members. The switches also protect your technology investment with an enhanced warranty, dedicated technical support, and the ability to upgrade equipment in the future and receive credit for your Cisco 500 Series switch. Overall, the Cisco 500 Series provides the ideal technology foundation for a growing business.
Easy Deployment and Use Cisco
500 Series switches are designed to be easy to use and manage by small businesses or the partners that serve them. They feature:
- Simple-to-use graphical interfaces reduce the time required to deploy, troubleshoot, and manage the network and allow you to support sophisticated capabilities without increasing IT head count.
- You can manage the switches as individual devices or use Cisco Configuration Assistant (CCA) to discover, configure, and manage all Cisco devices in the network.
- The switches also support Textview, a full command-line interface (CLI) option for partners that prefer it.
- Using Auto Smartports intelligence, the switch can detect a network device connected to any port and automatically configure the optimal security, quality of service (QoS), and availability on that port.
- Cisco Discovery Protocol (CDP) discovers Cisco devices and allows devices to share critical configuration information, simplifying network setup and integration.
- Support for Simple Network Management Protocol (SNMP) allows you to set up and manage your switches and other Cisco devices remotely from a network management station, improving IT workflow and mass configurations.
- The Cisco FindIT utility, which works through a simple toolbar on the user's web browser, discovers Cisco devices in the network and displays basic information, such as serial numbers and IP addresses, to aid in configuration and deployment. (For more information, and to download this free utility, please visit www.cisco.com/go/findit.)
High Reliability and Resiliency
In a growing business where 24x7 availability is critical, you need to assure that employees can always access the data and resources they need. In these environments, stackable switches can play an important role in eliminating downtime and improving network resiliency. For example, if a switch within a Cisco 500 Series stack fails, another switch immediately takes over, keeping your network up and running. You can also replace individual devices in the stack without taking your network offline or affecting employee productivity.
The Cisco 500X models provide an additional layer of resiliency with support for the Virtual Router Redundancy Protocol (VRRP). VRRP lets you extend the same resiliency that stacking provides for individual switches to complete network domains. By running VRRP between two stacks, you can instantly cut over from one stack to another in the event of a problem, and continue operating even after a failure.
The Cisco 500 Series also supports dual images, allowing you to perform software upgrades without having to take the network offline or worry about the network going down during the upgrade.
Simplified IT Operation
Cisco 500 Series switches help optimize your IT operations with built-in features that simplify and streamline day-to-day network operation:
- True stacking allows you to troubleshoot, configure, and manage multiple physical switches as a single entity.
- Unlike other stacking switches that require uniform configurations, the Cisco 500 Series allows you to mix Fast Ethernet, Gigabit Ethernet, and 10 Gigabit Ethernet models in a single stack, providing total flexibility without sacrificing manageability.
- Cisco switches use common chipsets/software across all switching portfolios, so all Cisco switches within a category support the same feature set – making it easier to manage and support all switches across the network.
True Stacking
Some switches claim to support stacking but in practice support only "clustering" – meaning that each switch must still be managed and configured individually. Cisco 500 Series switches provide true stacking capability, allowing you to configure, manage, and troubleshoot all switches in a stack as a single unit, with a single IP address.
A true stack delivers a unified data and control plane, in addition to management plane, providing flexibility, scalability, and ease of use since the stack of units operate as a single entity constituting all the ports of the stack members. This capability can radically reduce complexity in a growing network environment while improving the resiliency and availability of network applications. True stacking also provides other cost savings and administrative benefits through features such as cross-stack QoS, VLANs, and port mirroring, which clustered switches can't support.
Strong Security
Cisco 500 Series switches provide the advanced security features you need to protect your business data and keep unauthorized users off the network:
- Embedded Secure Sockets Layer (SSL) encryption protects management data traveling to and from the switch.
- Extensive access control lists (ACLs) restrict sensitive portions of the network to keep out unauthorized users and guard against network attacks.
- Guest VLANs let you provide Internet connectivity to nonemployee users while isolating critical business services from guest traffic.
- Support for advanced network security applications such as IEEE 802.1X port security tightly limits access to specific segments of your network. © 2011–2012 Cisco and/or its affiliates. All rights reserved. This document is Cisco Public Information. Page 4 of 16 Data Sheet
- Advanced defense mechanisms, including dynamic Address Resolution Protocol (ARP) inspection, IP Source Guard, and Dynamic Host Configuration Protocol (DHCP) snooping, detect and block deliberate network attacks. Combinations of these protocols are also referred to as IPMB (IP-MACport binding)
- Time based VLANs restrict access to the network during predesignated times, such as business hours.
- Uniform MAC address-based security can be applied automatically to mobile users as they roam between wireless access points.
- Secure Core Technology (SCT) helps ensure that the switch is able to process management traffic in the face of a denial of service attack.
- Private VLAN Edge (PVE) provides Layer 2 isolation between devices on the same VLAN.
- Storm control can be applied to broadcast, multicast, and unknown unicast traffic.