Ethernet operations, administration and maintenance (OAM)
detects data link layer problems that occurred in the "last mile" using the IEEE 802.3ah OAM standard; monitors the
status of the link between two devices
IEEE 802.3af Power over Ethernet (PoE)
provides up to 15.4 W per port to IEEE 802.3af-compliant PoE-powered devices such as IP phones, wireless access points,
and security cameras
IEEE 802.3at Power over Ethernet (PoE+) support
simplifies deployment and dramatically reduces installation costs by helping to eliminate the time and cost involved in
supplying local power at each access point location
Performance
Nonblocking performance
up to 17.6 Gbps nonblocking switching fabric provides wire-speed switching with up to 13.1 million pps throughput
Gigabit Ethernet interface
provides a connection to the network that eliminates the network as a bottleneck
Hardware-based wire-speed access control lists
feature-rich ACL implementation helps ensure high levels of security and ease of administration without impacting
network performance
Resiliency and high availability
Separate data and control paths
keeps control separated from services and keeps service processing isolated; increases security and performance
External redundant power supply
provides high reliability
Smart link
allows 50 ms failover between links
Spanning Tree/MSTP, RSTP
provides redundant links while preventing network loops
Intelligent Resilient Framework (IRF)
creates virtual resilient switching fabrics, where two or more switches perform as a single L2 switch and L3 router;
switches do not have to be co-located and can be part of a disaster recovery system; servers or switches can be attached
using standard LACP for automatic load balancing and high availability; can eliminate the need for complex protocols like
Spanning Tree Protocol, Equal-Cost Multipath (ECMP), or VRRP, thereby simplifying network operation
IEEE 802.3ad Link Aggregation Control Protocol (LACP)
supports up to 24 trunks, each with 8 links per trunk; supports static or dynamic groups
Virtual Router Redundancy Protocol (VRRP)
allows a group of routers to dynamically back each other up to create highly available routed environments
IRF capability
provides single IP address management for a resilient virtual switching fabric of up to nine switches
Manageability
RMON (remote monitoring)
provides advanced monitoring and reporting capabilities for statistics, history, alarms, and events
Layer 2 switching
16/32K MAC address table
provides access to many Layer 2 devices
VLAN support and tagging
support IEEE 802.1Q with 4,094 simultaneous VLAN IDs