The Cisco Catalyst 2960-S and 2960 Series Switches are the leading Layer 2 edge switches, providing improved operational excellence, highly secure business operations, improved sustainability, and an enhanced workspace experience. They are fixed-configuration access switches designed for entry-level enterprise, midmarket, and branch office networks. Figure 1 shows the Cisco Catalyst 2960-S Series Switch model and Figure 2 shows the Cisco Catalyst 2960 Series Switch model with LAN Lite software.

The Cisco Catalyst 2960-S Series Switches with LAN Lite Software have the following capabilities:

●   24 and 48 ports of Gigabit Ethernet (GbE) 10/100/1000 desktop connectivity

●   1 GbE Small Form-Factor Pluggable (SFP) uplinks

●   USB storage interface for file backup, distribution, and simplified operations

●   Enhanced troubleshooting for problem solving, including link connectivity and cable diagnostics

●   Single IP address management for up to 16 switches

●   A wide range of software features to provide ease of operation, secure business operations, sustainability and borderless networking experience

●   Limited lifetime hardware warranty, including next-business-day replacement with 90-day service and support

The Cisco Catalyst 2960 Series Switches with LAN Lite Software have the following capabilities:

●   Fast Ethernet connectivity with Power over Ethernet (PoE) of up to 15.4W per port

●   GbE for data connectivity

●   Enhanced troubleshooting for problem solving, including link connectivity and cable diagnostics

●   Single IP address management for up to 16 switches

●   A wide range of software features to provide ease of operation, highly secure business operations, sustainability, and a borderless networking experience

●   Limited lifetime hardware warranty

Switch Configurations

Table 1 shows the configuration information for the Cisco Catalyst 2960-S and 2960 Series Switches with LAN Lite Software.

Table 1.       Configurations of Cisco Catalyst 2960-S and 2960 Series Switches with LAN Lite Software

Cisco Catalyst 2960-S and 2960 Series Switches Enable Cisco Borderless Network

The Cisco Borderless Network Architecture delivers the new workspace experience, connecting anyone, anywhere, using any device, to any resource securely, reliably, and transparently. The Cisco Borderless Networks architecture addresses primary IT and business challenges to help create a truly borderless experience by bringing interactions closer to the employee and customer.

Borderless experience is only possible with intelligent network elements designed and architected to meet the needs of a global workspace. Cisco Network Access is a primary component of this architecture, enabling various borderless network services such as mobility, security, EnergyWise, and ease of operations for increased productivity and operational efficiency.

Cisco Network Access for Borderless solution focuses on the following primary areas:

●   Sustainability

●   Ease of operations

●   Borderless security

●   Borderless experience

Sustainability

Cisco Catalyst switching solutions enable greener practices through measurable power efficiency, integrated services, and continuous innovations such as Cisco EnergyWise, an enterprisewide solution that monitors and conserves energy with customized policies. Together, Cisco EnergyWise technology and Cisco Catalyst switches reduce greenhouse gas (GhG) emissions and increase energy cost savings and sustainable business behavior. Sustainability features in the Cisco Catalyst 2960-S and 2960 Series Switches include the following features sets:

●   Cisco EnergyWise technology

●   Efficient switch operation

●   Intelligent power management

Cisco EnergyWise Technology

Cisco EnergyWise is an innovative architecture, added to fixed configuration switches, promoting companywide sustainability by reducing energy consumption across an entire corporate infrastructure and affecting more than 50 percent of global greenhouse gas emissions created by worldwide building infrastructure, a much greater effect than the 2 percent generated by the IT industry. Cisco EnergyWise enables companies to measure the power consumption of network infrastructure and network-attached devices and manage power consumption with specific policies, reducing power consumption to realize increased cost savings, potentially affecting any powered device.

EnergyWise encompasses a highly intelligent network-based approach to communicate messages that measure and control energy between network devices and endpoints. The network discovers Cisco EnergyWise-manageable devices, monitors their power consumption, and takes action based on business rules to reduce power consumption. EnergyWise uses a unique domain-naming system to query and summarize information from large sets of devices, making it simpler than traditional network management capabilities. Cisco EnergyWise’s management interfaces allow facilities and network management applications to communicate with endpoints and each other using the network as a unifying fabric. The management interface uses standard Simple Network Management Protocol (SNMP) or TCP to integrate Cisco and third-party management systems.

Efficient Switch Operation

Cisco Catalyst 2960-S and 2960 Series Switches, designed and engineered by Cisco, provide optimum power saving, low power operations for industry best-in-class power management, and power consumption capabilities. The Catalyst 2960-S ports are capable of reduced power modes so that ports not in use can move into a lower power utilization state.

Intelligent Power over Ethernet Management

The Cisco Catalyst 2960 Series PoE models support the latest PoE devices including Cisco IP phones and Cisco Aironet WLAN access points providing up to 15.4W of power per port, as well as any IEEE 802.3af-compliant end device.

●   Per port power consumption command allows customers to specify maximum power setting on an individual port.

●   Cisco Discovery Protocol Version 2 allows switches to negotiate a more granular power setting when connecting to a Cisco powered device such as IP phones or access points than what is provided by IEEE classification.

●   PoE MIB provides proactive visibility into power usage and allows customers to set different power-level thresholds.

●   IEEE 802.3af and Cisco prestandard PoE support comes with automatic discovery to detect a Cisco prestandard or IEEE 802.3af endpoint and provide the necessary power without any user configuration. Per-port PoE power sensing measures the actual power being drawn, enabling more intelligent control of powered devices.

Table 2 lists the PoE capacity of the Cisco Catalyst 2960 Series Switches.

Table 2.       Switch PoE Power Capacity

Ease of Operations

The Cisco Catalyst 2960-S and 2960 Series Switches help reduce the operating costs through:

●   Cisco Catalyst Smart Operations

●   Easy to use deployment and control features

●   Advanced, intelligent network management tools

Cisco Catalyst Smart Operations

Cisco Catalyst Smart Operations is a comprehensive set of capabilities that simplify LAN deployment, configuration, and troubleshooting. Cisco Catalyst Smart Operations enable zero-touch installation and replacement of switches, fast upgrade, as well as ease of troubleshooting with reduced operational cost.

Cisco Catalyst Smart Operations is a set of features that includes Smart Install, Auto Smartports, Smart Configuration, and Smart Troubleshooting to enhance operational excellence:

●   Cisco Smart Install is a transparent plug-and-play technology to configure the Cisco IOS Software image and switch configuration without user intervention. Smart Install utilizes dynamic IP address allocation and the assistance of other switches to facilitate installation providing transparent network plug and play.

●   Cisco Auto Smartports provide automatic configuration as devices connect to the switch port, allowing auto detection and plug and play of the device onto the network.

Easy to Use Deployment and Control Features

●   Auto-negotiation on all ports automatically selects half- or full-duplex transmission mode to optimize bandwidth.

●   Dynamic Trunking Protocol (DTP) facilitates dynamic trunk configuration across all switch ports.

●   Port Aggregation Protocol (PAgP) automates the creation of Cisco Fast EtherChannel groups or Gigabit EtherChannel groups to link to another switch, router, or server.

●   Link Aggregation Control Protocol (LACP) allows the creation of Ethernet channeling with devices that conform to IEEE 802.3ad. This feature is similar to Cisco EtherChannel technology and PAgP.

●   Automatic media-dependent interface crossover (MDIX) automatically adjusts transmit and receive pairs if an incorrect cable type (crossover or straight-through) is installed.

●   Unidirectional Link Detection Protocol (UDLD) and Aggressive UDLD allow unidirectional links caused by incorrect fiber-optic wiring or port faults to be detected and disabled on fiber-optic interfaces.

●   Dynamic Host Configuration Protocol (DHCP) autoconfiguration of multiple switches through a boot server eases switch deployment.

●   Switching Database Manager (SDM) templates for access, routing, and VLAN deployment allow the administrator to easily maximize memory allocation to the desired features based on deployment-specific requirements.

●   Local Proxy Address Resolution Protocol (ARP) works in conjunction with Private VLAN Edge to minimize broadcasts and maximize available bandwidth.

●   Internet Group Management Protocol (IGMP) Snooping for IPv4 and IPv6 MLD v1 and v2 Snooping provide fast client joins and leaves of multicast streams and limit bandwidth-intensive video traffic to only the requestors.

●   Per-port broadcast, multicast, and unicast storm control prevents faulty end stations from degrading overall systems performance.

●   Voice VLAN simplifies telephony installations by keeping voice traffic on a separate VLAN for easier administration and troubleshooting.

●   Cisco VLAN Trunking Protocol (VTP) supports dynamic VLANs and dynamic trunk configuration across all switches.

●   Switch Port Analyzer (SPAN) allows administrators to monitor ports in a Layer 2 switch network from any other switch in the same network.

●   For enhanced traffic management, monitoring, and analysis, the Embedded Remote Monitoring (RMON) software agent supports four RMON groups (history, statistics, alarms, and events).

●   Trivial File Transfer Protocol (TFTP) reduces the cost of administering software upgrades by downloading from a centralized location.

●   Network Timing Protocol (NTP) provides an accurate and consistent timestamp to all intranet switches.

●   Cisco Emergency Responder (CER) enhances emergency calling from Cisco Unified CallManager. It helps assure that Cisco Unified CallManager sends emergency calls to the appropriate Public Safety Answering Point (PSAP) for the caller's location.

Advanced, Intelligent Network Management Tools

The Cisco Catalyst 2960-S and 2960 Series Switches offer both a superior CLI for detailed configuration, a PC-based tool for quick configuration based on preset templates. In addition, CiscoWorks LAN Management Solution (LMS) supports the Cisco Catalyst 2960-S and 2960 Series Switches for networkwide management.

CiscoWorks LAN Management Solution

CiscoWorks LAN Management Solution (LMS) is a comprehensive network lifecycle management solution. It provides an extensive library of easy-to-use features to automate the initial and day-to-day management of your Cisco network infrastructure. CiscoWorks LMS uniquely uses Cisco hardware and software platform knowledge and operational experience into a powerful set of workflow driven configuration, monitoring, troubleshooting, reporting, and administrative tools. Including:

●   Support for new Cisco hardware platforms the day they ship

●   Support for new technologies and services from initial deployment to day-to-day administration and management, such as EnergyWise, Identity, Cisco Auto Smartports, Cisco Smart Install, and much more

●   Configuration management tools built from Cisco experience and Cisco Validated Design recommendations

●   Monitoring and troubleshooting capabilities that incorporates Cisco hardware best practices and diagnostics features

●   Automation in managing hardware inventories, security vulnerabilities (PSIRTS) and platform end-of-life and support cycles

For detailed information about CiscoWorks LMS, go to: http://www.cisco.com/en/US/products/sw/cscowork/ps2425/index.html.

Borderless Security

The Cisco Catalyst 2960-S and 2960 LAN Lite Series Switches provide basic TrustSec, a primary element of Borderless Security Architecture, that helps enterprise customers secure their networks, data and resources with policy-based access control, identity-aware and role-aware networking, pervasive integrity, and confidentiality. The borderless security is enabled by the following feature sets in the Cisco Catalyst 2960-S and 2960 Series Switches:

●   Basic Cisco TrustSec

●   Other security features

Cisco TrustSec

●   The Cisco TrustSec solution provides authentication, access control, and security policy administration to secure network connectivity and resources. On the Cisco Catalyst 2960-S and 2960 Series with LAN Lite, the TrustSec solution prevents unauthorized access and helps ensure that users get only their designated privileges. It provides the ability to dynamically administer granular levels of network access.

Other Security Features

Other Advanced Security features include but are not limited to:

●   MAC Auth Bypass (MAB) for voice allows third-party IP phones without an 802.1X supplicant to get authenticated using their MAC address.

●   Port security can be used to limit access on an Ethernet port based on the MAC address of the device to which it is connected. It also can be used to limit the total number of devices plugged into a switch port, thereby protecting the switch from a MAC flooding attack as well as reducing the risks posed by rogue wireless access points or hubs.

●   The MAC Address Notification feature can be used to monitor the network and track users by sending an alert to a management station so that network administrators know when and where users enter the network.

●   Secure Shell (SSH) Protocol v2 and Simple Network Management Protocol (SNMP) v3 provide network security by encrypting administrator traffic during Telnet and SNMP sessions. SSH v2 and the cryptographic version of SNMP v3 require a special cryptographic software image because of U.S. export restrictions.

Borderless Experience

Borderless network enables enterprise mobility and business-grade video services. Industry’s first unified network (wired and wireless) location services enable tracking of mobile assets and the users of those assets for both wired and wireless devices. The true borderless experience is enabled by the following feature sets in the Cisco Catalyst 2960-S and 2960 Series Switches:

●   Layer 2 Networking

●   QoS

Layer 2 Networking

The Cisco 2960-S and 2960 Series Switches provide Layer 2 networking to enable availability.

Features include but are not limited to:

●   IEEE 802.1s/w Rapid Spanning Tree Protocol (RSTP) and Multiple Spanning Tree Protocol (MSTP) provide rapid spanning-tree convergence independent of spanning-tree timers and also offers the benefit of Layer 2 load balancing and distributed processing.

●   Per-VLAN Rapid Spanning Tree (PVRST+) allows rapid spanning-tree reconvergence on a per-VLAN spanning-tree basis, without requiring the implementation of spanning-tree instances.

●   Switch-port autorecovery (Errdisable) automatically attempts to reactivate a link that is disabled because of a network error.

●   Up to 64 VLANs and up to 64 spanning-tree instances per switch are supported.

Quality of Service

The Cisco Catalyst 2960-S and 2960 Series Switches offers intelligent services that keep everything flowing smoothly. Industry-leading mechanisms for marking, classification, and scheduling deliver superior performance for data, voice, and video traffic, all at wire speed.

Following are some of the QoS features supported in the Cisco 2960-S and 2960 Series Switches:

●   802.1p class of service (CoS) classification provides differentiated services when best-effort traffic delivery is insufficient.

●   Four egress queues per port help enable differentiated management of different traffic types across the stack.

●   Shaped Round Robin (SRR) scheduling helps ensure differential prioritization of packet flows by intelligently servicing the ingress queues and egress queues.

●   Weighted Tail Drop (WTD) provides congestion avoidance at the ingress and egress queues before a disruption occurs.

Tables 3, 4, 5, 6 and 7 provide hardware features, power specifications, management and standards, and safety and compliance information for the Cisco Catalyst 2960-S and 2960 Series Switches with LAN Lite Software.

Table 3.       Hardware Features for Cisco Catalyst 2960-S and 2960 Series Switches with LAN Lite Software

Table 4.       Power Specifications for Cisco Catalyst 2960-S and 2960 Series Switches with LAN Lite Software

Table 5.       Voltage and Power Rating for Cisco Catalyst 2960-S and 2960 Series Switches with LAN Lite Software

Table 6.       Management and Standards Support for Cisco Catalyst 2960-S and 2960 Series Switches with LAN Lite Software

Table 7.       Safety and Compliance

Ordering Information

Table 10 has ordering information for the Cisco Catalyst 2960-S and 2960 Series Switches with LAN Lite Software.

Table 10.     Ordering Information for Cisco Catalyst 2960 Series Switches with LAN Lite Software

For latest information on transceivers, please go to: http://www.cisco.com/en/US/products/hw/modules/ps5455/products_device_support_tables_list.html.