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MACsec encryption has become increasing popular and important to campus network design, but previous switch performance degraded when encrypted traffic was passing through it. Here we show that the catalyst 6500 does not suffer a performance degrade while MACsec traffic is passing through it. We tested the Catalyst 6500 via the cPacket Networks cTap 10G passive probe to verify traffic flows were either MACsec encrypted or unencrypted. We found that there is no material difference in throughput performance, other than 802.1ae encryption key overhead, thanks to 16 additional bytes per packet. The cPacket passive probe also measured line rate throughput performance. This is a great short video that verifies how the old encryption performance penalty is now gone.
Download “A Comprehensive Testing of Cisco Systems Catalyst 6500 Sup2T” report here.
For IPv4 and IPv6, dual stack implementations are most popular where desktops and mobile devices run both IPv4 and IPv6, therefore, the network infrastructure needs to support both equally at high performance. IPv6 performance has not been on par with IPv4 until now. To demonstrate how the Catalyst 6500 upgrade with Sup2T has improved IPv6 performance, we measure IPv4 and IPv6 unicast and bidirectional traffic performance via RFC 2544. IP Multicast traffic has been on the rise, thanks to the increased use of video services within the enterprise. Therefore, we test IP Multicast performance via RFC 3918 on the new Catalyst 6500 Sup2T to stresses its packet replication ASIC built into the 6908-10G line cards. We find that the new Catalyst 6500 delivers equal Ipv4 and Ipv6 performance; a 2x increase from the Sup720 for IP unicast, bidirectional and multicast forwarding.
Download “A Comprehensive Testing of Cisco Systems Catalyst 6500 Sup2T” report here.
One of the most impressive network design options available on the Catalyst 6500 is the use of VSS. Connecting two Catalyst 6500s equipped with Sup2Ts creates a virtual switch, adding each switch’s performance while operating as a single switch thus eliminating spanning tree in favor for active-active links. We configure two Catalyst 6500s via VSS. We measure throughput performance to verify that VSS throughput rates are equally high performance as the MPLS and VPLS scenarios. Check out the two-Catalyst 6500 configurations we deployed for this test.
Download “A Comprehensive Testing of Cisco Systems Catalyst 6500 Sup2T” report here.
During the Lippis Report test of the Cisco Systems Catalyst 6500 at Ixia’s iSimCity we perform an upgrade from Supervisor Engine 720 to 2T. What IT business leaders are looking for are incremental network upgrades with minimal disruption. Therefore, we swap out Sup720 for Sup2T and bring up existing service modules and line cards. Remember that line cards represent the largest investment in switching equipment, so we’ll demonstrate that older line cards interoperate at high performance when the new Sup2T replaces the Sup720. We find that the upgrade process is easy and smooth with compatibility of line cards, configuration code, service modules, transceivers and chassis.
Download “A Comprehensive Testing of Cisco Systems Catalyst 6500 Sup2T” report here.
IT business leaders are seeking data center fabrics that scale to support increasing density of physical and virtual servers at cloud spec. In October of this year, Cisco delivered a monster data center fabric announcement aimed at increasing scale, security and new data center services. A few highlights are the second-generation Nexus 7000 capabilities, a new Nexus 7009 platform, plus FabricPath capabilities on the Nexus 5500 and expanded Nexus 1GbE and 40GbE form factors of the Nexus 3000. Shashi Kiran, Director of Market Management for Data Center/Virtualization and Enterprise Switching at Cisco Systems joins me to talk about what IT business leaders will gain from this new announcement from a business outcome and data center fabric design perspective.
You can’t manage what you can’t measure. Cisco’s next generation NetFlow provides deep application visibility, detailed measurement plus increased control and security for IT departments that are struggling to get ahead of an Enterprise application portfolio that is undergoing a massive transition thanks to mobile and cloud computing. Samuel Pasquier, product manager for Cisco Systems, and Adam Powers, chief technology officer for Lancope discuss best practices for securing and gaining visibility to applications that are flowing over enterprise networks with the next generation of NetFlow.
It can be easy to forget how much depends on the enterprise network—until you have to tell the VP of sales that he can’t use his iPhone on the corporate network because the appropriate security controls aren’t in place. Or you must tell the CIO that expanding the virtualization initiative to include business-critical applications will severely tax bandwidth. The truth is, nearly everything in modern businesses is dependent on the enterprise network, and every decision you make is based on whether the network can handle it. This paper takes a look at a common pitfall in IT circles that can have a serious impact on the IT decision maker’s ability to say “yes” to new business initiatives. It also offers recommendations for IT organizations that wish to act as business enablers.
A third-party business consulting firm analyzed the total cost of ownership (TCO) of Cisco enterprise customer networks, and contrasted that TCO to “good enough” networks from other networking vendors. Key findings:
1) TCO is a better metric than CapEx to assess network cost because it considers the full impact on IT spend, including CapEx, services, labor, bandwidth and energy.
2) The Cisco Borderless Network Architecture can deliver up to 13% better TCO than a “good enough” network, offering compelling value for the strategic Cisco investment.
3) Even if architectural benefits are discounted in the analysis, Cisco is, at most, a 7% TCO premium over other vendors due to IT labor savings and extended product lifecycles from Cisco solutions.
4) The single biggest benefit of Cisco’s architectural approach is labor savings. Labor constitutes 50% of TCO and Cisco delivers 5% to 10% labor savings driven by unified wired and wireless and embedded security.
5) A quality network delivers business benefits beyond TCO, including improved network uptime, higher user productivity and a lower threat of security breaches.
Power over Ethernet or PoE has evolved from delivering 7 Watts/port to support IP phones to now 60 Watts/port to power a wide range of devices that span WLAN access points, surveillance video cameras, video conferencing end points, IP turrets for financial trading, and now, thin client desktop devices to support virtualized desktops. The current high PoE standard is IEEE 802.3at that details 30 Watts/port, so Cisco’s Universal PoE or UPOE solution at 60W is a pre-standard offering. The key point about UPOE is that it provides a new range of design options in both power distribution, but more importantly, how virtualized desktops and other electronics are powered. Pradeep Parmar, Senior Marketing Manager, Borderless Networks, at Cisco Systems, joins me to talk about the fundamental change PoE is taking, thanks to Cisco’s UPOE solution.
Enterprise workspace is quickly evolving with new networked devices to improve communication, collaboration, security and productivity. Power over Ethernet (PoE), a way to deliver electrical power over LAN cabling to networked devices, has been widely deployed over the years to provide power to various endpoints. Cisco® Catalyst® 4500E, a market leader of PoE technology, continues to innovate to deliver Universal PoE (UPOE) technology with up to 60 watt power to enable even broader endpoint support, with additional benefits of higher availability, lower OpEx and faster deployment.
This paper provides an overview of the Cisco UPOE technology. It describes how Cisco has evolved PoE technology to UPOE, the use case examples of UPOE to simplify enterprise deployment, and UPOE architecture and operations.
Hundreds of Cisco customers have debated the trade-off of prioritizing the lowest price for a point product or service in their network over a strategic plan for how they architect their network infrastructure. Through interactions with many customers, Cisco has analyzed various network designs and implementations. Our findings show that although there is a place for building a low-cost tactical network, the ongoing operations, upgrades and lack of preparedness to meet new business challenges prove to be hindrances to organizations in the long run. Rather than just considering capital cost, organizations are well served to look at total cost of ownership, including operations and return on investment plus business capabilities enabled by a strategic network, as they build out their networks to address business needs today and tomorrow. Forrester Consulting Group provides an excellent analysis in this paper too.
IT business leaders are demanding a unified policy-driven
management strategy for network access and security, mobile
endpoints including iPads, tablets and smartphones. A holistic
network approach is the unification of these management assets
to simplify operations and shift control to IT leaders. A holistic
network approach from Cisco Systems is to streamline NetOps
through the automated orchestration of policy, management and
infrastructure. In this model, network administrators will not have
to access multiple different management systems to collect data,
correlate it manually and then attempt to identify problem location.
One management system, Cisco Prime NCS with integrated
links to ISE delivers this service to NetOps drastically improving
network visibility and reducing troubleshooting time through a
client- or user-focused approach to managing corporate networks
in the age of mobile and cloud computing.
The Payment Card Industry Data Security Standard (PCI DSS) Version 2.0 has been released, providing clarification and reinforcing the need for merchants and other organizations to identify all system components, people and processes to be included in a PCI DSS assessment. Simply achieving device and system compliance is not enough to protect your retail business and your customers. Cisco® PCI Solution for Retail 2.0 helps you:
• Address current PCI compliance requirements
• Protect customer data in your data center, stores, Internet edge, contact center and between partners, such as payment processors
• Simplify compliance
• Offer guidance on security best practices
In Cisco’s Data Center Fabric, it has delivered a set of features and innovations that solve some of the most difficult networking challenges found in virtualized infrastructure. IP address and VM mobility plus adapter and VM Fabric EXtenders (FEX) offer increased support for virtualized data center infrastructure, offering designers flexibility to move virtualized assets independent of location. These innovations are proposed by Cisco that promises virtualization aware networking, lower cost and increased performance. Omar Sultan, Senior Manager, Data Center Architecture at Cisco Systems, and I discuss Cisco’s new data center virtualization tools.
