Cisco 6880-X vs. Catalyst 4500X

Cisco Catalyst 6880-X is a highly scalable and manageable solution for user access offering up to 1008 (FCS) 10/100/1000 ports within a single management system when working with the Catalyst 6800ia remote linecard, while providing the same feature set as a regular Catalyst 6500 that you might be longing for. What do you need to know about Cisco 6880-X? We will summarize some main highlights for you.

The Cisco Catalyst 6880-X and Port cards

Chassis-Cisco 6880-X Series

• 6880-X comes in two flavors
  • C6880-X-LE (Lite) with smaller hardware table
  • C6880-X (Heavy) with larger hardware table
• Single fixed Supervisor (based on SUP2T) 
• Require minimum IOS 15.1SY with feature parity to SUP2T
• Capable of 220 Gbps/Slot. Total of 2Tbps. 4Tbps in VSS.
• Built-in 16 x 10G (10/100/1000 with Copper SFP or 1G/10G with SFP/+)
  • 80 Gbps to backplane (ie. 2:1 Oversubscription)
  • Based on WS-X6904-40G (also support up to 16 x 10G)
  • Can disable second half of port ASIC to enable line rate (Performance Mode)
• Four half-width expansion slots available
• Dimension 8.5x 17.36 x 23 inches, Height = 4.85 RU
• Dual 3KW Power Supply
• Side-to-side airflow

Linecard-Catalyst 6880-X Switches

• 16-Port 10G Module
• Also comes with two flavors
  • C-6880-X-LE-16P10G (Lite) with smaller hardware table
  • C-6880-X-16P10G (Heavy) with larger hardware table
• 16 x 10G (10/100/1000 with Copper SFP or 1G/10G with SFP/+)
  • 80 Gbps to backplane (ie. 2:1 Oversubscription)
  • Based on WS-X6904-40G (also support up to 16 x 10G)
  • Can disable second half of port ASIC to enable line rate (Performance Mode)
  • In other word, this is identical to the built-in ports
• Linecard type can be mixed with chassis type but they will operate at the lowest common denominator, hence not recommended.

Catalyst 4500X vs. Cisco 6880-X

If you are familiar with Catalyst 4500X, you can see that they have a lot of similarity, being able to support 1G/10G on all ports, and VSS capable. Since 4500X max out at 40 ports, if you have a need to exceed that, 6880-X could certainly be your option by scaling up to 80 ports. Despite the 2:1 oversubscription of 6800-X, the benefit of centralized configuration with 6800ia can be very compelling. Finally, the lack of modularity and redundancy of the Supervisor can easily be overcome by deploying VSS.

More Related Cisco Switch Topics:

Cisco Catalyst 6880-X Series Review

Cisco Catalyst 6800: New Name, Same Game

Cisco Delivers “Monster” Catalyst Switch, Routers for SDN Environments

Cisco Catalyst 6800 Switch and Friends