Are you looking for a high-performance switch that can support your growing network infrastructure? Look no further than the Cisco Catalyst 9300 Series. This cutting-edge series offers advanced security features, unparalleled flexibility and scalability, and exceptional performance for businesses of all sizes. Whether you’re upgrading your existing network or building a new one from scratch, the Cisco Catalyst 9300 Series is sure to exceed your expectations. In this blog post, we’ll dive into what makes this series so special and why it’s worth considering as the backbone of your network infrastructure.
What to look for when buying a networking switch?
If you’re in the market for a Cisco Catalyst switch, there are a few things you’ll want to keep in mind. Here are some of the most important factors to consider:
1. Port count and speed: Depending on your needs, you’ll want to make sure the switch has enough ports and that they’re fast enough to support your network traffic.
2. Management and security features: Cisco Catalyst switches come with a variety of management and security features that can help ensure your network’s safety and efficiency. Be sure to evaluate which features are most important to you and make sure the switch you select offers them.
3. Budget: Of course, the cost is always a factor when making any purchase. Be sure to set a budget for yourself and stick to it when choosing a Cisco Catalyst switch.
Do you need a networking switch?
If you have a small business with a limited number of devices that need to connect to a network, you may not need a networking switch. A router may be all you need to create a LAN (Local Area Network). However, if you have more than a few devices that need to connect, or if you require high-speed connectivity for some devices, then you will likely need a switch. Switches allow you to expand your network by providing additional Ethernet ports. They also provide better performance than routers because they can process data faster and they operate at full-duplex mode, meaning they can send and receive data simultaneously.
Cisco Catalyst 9300 Series: Overview
Cisco Catalyst 9300 Series switches are Cisco’s lead stackable enterprise access switching platform and as part of the Catalyst 9000 family, is built to transform your network to handle a hybrid world where the workplace is anywhere, endpoints could be anything, and applications are hosted all over the place.
The Catalyst 9300 Series, including the new Catalyst 9300X models, continues to shape the future with continued innovation that helps you reimagine connections, reinforce security, and redefine the experience for your hybrid workforce big and small.
The many industries first include:
● Up to 1TB of stacking bandwidth: With StackWise-1T, Catalyst 9300 switches are the industry’s highest-density stacking bandwidth solution with the most flexible uplink architecture
● Flexible and dense uplink offerings with 100G, 40G, 25G, Multigigabit, 10G, and 1G modular uplinks
● Mixed Stacking with Backward Compatibility – Stack your Catalyst 9300X fiber switches with Catalyst 9300 and Catalyst 9300X Multigigabit switches, bringing stackable high-speed fiber to the access
● Highest Multigigabit Ports: With standalone and StackWise-1T, Catalyst 9300X models enable 48 main ports in standalone and 448 mGig ports with an 8-member stack
● Highest 90W UPOE+ Density: Enable your OT/IT needs with up to 36 ports of 90W UPOE+ for standalone or 288 ports of 90W UPOE+ with an 8-member stack.
● StackPower with Backward Compatibility: Enable power resiliency with higher power budgets in mixed Catalyst 9300 and Catalyst 9300X stack.
● 100G IPsec in hardware: With the new 2.0Sec UADP ASIC, the Catalyst 9300X comes with 100G line rate IPsec to enable various options for new edge connectivity
● Secure Tunnel connectivity: With the new edge, the C9300X enables secure connections to Secure Internet Gateway, Cloud Service Providers, and Site-to-Site connectivity using an IPsec tunnel with AES-256 Encryption and speeds up to 100G.
● Enhanced Application Hosting: With 2x capacity and additional RAM, QAT, and 2 x 10G AppGig Ports, multiple Cisco Signed performance savvy applications can be hosted on Catalyst 9300X
● ThousandEyes Enabled: End-to-end visualization of the path from campus/branch to clouds/DC with Cisco ThousandEyes Network and Application Synthetics (included with Cisco DNA Advantage licenses)
● Investment Protection: Catalyst 9300X redundant fans and power supplies, data stack, and StackPower cables are backward compatible with the Catalyst 9300.
Cisco Catalyst 9300 Series: Features and Benefits
● Highest wireless scale for Wi-Fi 6 and 802.11ac Wave 2 access points supported on a single switch with select models
● Catalyst 9300 and Catalyst 9300L/LM models are based on the Cisco UADP 2.0 Application-Specific Integrated Circuit (ASIC) with programmable pipeline and micro-engine capabilities, along with the template-based, configurable allocation of Layer 2 and Layer 3 forwarding, Access Control Lists (ACLs), and Quality of Service (QoS) entries
● Catalyst 9300X models are based on UADP 2.0sec ASIC which adds line rate support for Crypto, including 100G hardware-based IPsec
● x86 CPU complex with 8-GB memory, 16 GB of flash, and external USB 3.0 SSD pluggable storage slot (delivering up to 240GB of storage with an option SSD drive) to host containers. C9300X models support 16GB of memory
● USB 2.0 slot to load system images and set configurations
● Up to 1 TBps of local stackable switching bandwidth with Catalyst 9300X models
● Deeper buffer and higher scale model options for rich multi-media content delivery applications
● Flexible and dense uplink offerings with 100G, 40G, 25G, Multigigabit, 10G, and 1G as fixed or modular uplinks
● Easy transition from 40G to 100G and 10G to 25G with dual-rate optics
● Flexible downlink options with 25G, 10G, and 1G Copper and Fiber as well as the densest Multigigabit links
● With a mix of Copper (1G up to 10G) and Fiber (1G up to 25G) supported in a single stack, multiple flexible deployment scenarios are enabled, including 2-Tier, 3-Tier, and Hybrid architectures
● Leading PoE capabilities with up to 384 ports of PoE per stack, PoE+, and 288 ports high-density IEEE 802.3bt – 90W UPOE+, and 60W Cisco UPOE
● Intelligent Power Management with Cisco StackPower technology, providing power stacking among members for power redundancy. StackPower pools the power supplies across the stack to be used for redundancy and supplemental power purposes
● Line-rate, hardware-based Flexible NetFlow (FNF), delivering flow collection of up to 128,000 flows with select models
● IPv6 support in hardware, providing wire-rate forwarding for IPv6 networks
● Dual-stack support for IPv4/IPv6 and dynamic hardware forwarding table allocations, for ease of IPv4-to-IPv6 migration
● Support for both static and dynamic NAT and Port Address Translation (PAT)
● IEEE 802.1ba AV Bridging (AVB) built in to provide a better audio and video experience through improved time synchronization and QoS
● Precision Time Protocol (PTP; IEEE 1588v2) provides accurate clock synchronization with sub-microsecond accuracy making it suitable for the distribution and synchronization of time and frequency over a network
● Cisco IOS XE, a modern operating system for the enterprise with support for model-driven programmability including NETCONF, RESTCONF, YANG, on-box Python scripting, streaming telemetry, container-based application hosting, and patching for critical bug fixes. The OS also has built-in defenses to protect against runtime attacks
● End-to-end visualization of the path from campus/branch to clouds/DC with Cisco ThousandEyes Network and Application Synthetics (included with Cisco DNA Advantage license)
Conclusion
In conclusion, the Cisco Catalyst 9300 Series offers reliable networking performance that can easily be scaled to meet the needs of your business. Its advanced features make it easy to manage, while its support for a variety of protocols ensures better network compatibility across different devices and systems. The Catalyst 9300 series is an excellent choice for businesses looking for a powerful yet affordable solution to their networking needs.