Introducing the Supervisor Engine 6T

First in a series of blogs written by Cisco Switch Product Managers discussing their recently released products.

With the release of the next-generation Cisco Catalyst 6800 Series Supervisor Engine 6T, Cisco offers customers simple, scalable, smart and secure network services to build the next-generation network – today.

The move to digital business is being driven by key market transitions such as the Internet Of Things (IOT), digitization, flexible workspaces, mobility and rich-media communications. Such transitions are driving the next-generation enterprise campus network to scale exponentially.

In fact, a recent study predicts that within three years, global IP traffic will reach 168 Exabytes per month, close to a three times increase from 2014. This means that the gigabyte equivalent of all movies ever made will cross global IP networks every two minutes. Such a massive increase in traffic results translates into evolving requirements for the enterprise network.

To manage this, network architects must choose the right infrastructure today so that high performance and scalability—without compromising on simplicity, security and investment protection—will endure once this transformation occurs.

The Cisco Catalyst 6800 Series Supervisor Engine 6T architecture with enhanced capabilities provides network designers with those tools needed to build, manage, secure and scale the enterprise backbone layer in the future.

Some key new capabilities of the Cisco Catalyst 6800 Series Supervisor Engine 6T are:

Rich, High-Performance, Mature Feature-Set
• Improved fabric unlocking 440 Gbps per slot on the 6807-XL chassis, a two times increased improvement from the existing Sup2T on the same platform.
• Day-one feature parity with Sup2T for 3500+ features with maturity of code.
• For the first-time, all ports support: Instant Access, Virtual Switching System (VSS), Security Group Tag (SGT), MAC Security (MACSEC), Hierarchical Modular QoS (HQoS), Network Segmentation with Multiprotocol Label Switching (MPLS), Virtual Private LAN Service (VPLS) and Locator ID Separation Protocol (LISP).
• Rich multicast for layer2, layer3 and multicast deployments.

Security
• Exceptional network security with: TrustSec, Security Group Tag (SGT), Security Group Access Policies (SGACL), Network Address Translation (NAT) integrated with Cisco Identity Services Engine (ISE).

Manageability/Simplicity
• Enhanced control plane supporting up to 2000 Instant Access ports in a centralized configuration.
• RJ45 or Small Form Factor (SFP) Management port enabling operational flexibility.
• Hardware-enabled (Bidirectional Forwarding Detection) BFD Offload, In-Band Span.

Investment Protection
• Compatible with 6500-E chassis, Catalyst 6807-XL chassis, 6700, 6800, 6900 series line cards.
• Compatible with next-generation 10, 40, 100 Gigabit line cards.

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