Network traffic has grown exponentially over the last several years, and this trend is expected to continue into the foreseeable future. By 2016, there will be 19 billion networked devices, up from 10 billion in 2011. Business IP traffic is expected to reach 13.1 exabytes per month in 2016^[1]. Networks must be capable of scaling well beyond the needs of today to deal with the traffic of tomorrow while at the same time providing investment protection.

The Cisco^® Catalyst^® 6880-X Series Switch (Figure 1) is an extensible fixed aggregation switch that delivers a best-in-class Cisco Catalyst 6500 feature set in a small form factor. This premier aggregation platform offers best‑in-class scalability and flexibility with the premier Cisco Catalyst 6500 feature sets. This platform is ideal for those who want to introduce premium 10G services in small or midsize campus backbones. This unique platform offers 10G port density, full MPLS/VPLS functionality with large table sizes (up to 2M FIB entries), and more than 15 years of best-in-class features. With a full suite of L2/L3, virtualization, security, multicast, IPV6, application visibility, smart operations, and rich media services Cisco Catalyst 6800-X delivers unprecedented capabilities on day one. This platform also runs on the same architecture as the Cisco Catalyst 6500 Supervisor Engine 2T and therefore offers stability with a proven operating system software.

The Cisco Catalyst 6800-X Series chassis offers integrated resiliency by providing N+1 redundant fans, 1+1 power supply redundancy, and support for Virtual Switching System (VSS), thereby limiting network downtime, and ensures workforce productivity, customer satisfaction, and profitability.

Cisco Catalyst 6880-X Product Details

The Cisco Catalyst 6880-X provides flexibility to build desired port density through two versions (C6880-X-LE with standard FIB/ACL/Netflow tables and C6880-X with larger FIB/ACL/Netflow tables) of base chassis along with optional port cards (Figure 2). The base chassis comes with 16 10G/1G ports, and each port card supports 16 additional 10G/1G ports. Each system can be built up to 80 ports in 16-port increments. The port interface on the base module and the port cards supports both 10 Gigabit Ethernet and 1 Gigabit Ethernet speeds allowing customers to use their investment in 1 Gigabit Ethernet SFP and upgrade to 10 Gigabit Ethernet SFP+ when business demands change, without having to do a comprehensive upgrade of the existing deployment. The port cards are hot swappable.

Figure 1.           

Cisco Catalyst 6880-X Series Chassis with 4 Port Cards

Figure 2.           

16-Port Extensible Port Card

The Cisco Catalyst 6880-X Series offers primary features and benefits, including:

• Platform Scalability:The platform supports up to 220Gbps slot capacity per port-card. It supports up to 2Tbps of switching capacity, which doubles up to 4Tbps with VSS technology.
• Security:Support for Cisco TrustSec (CTS), to provide IEEE 802.1AE MACsec encryption and role-based ACL, CoPP to prevent DoS attacks and Cisco ISE to safeguard and manage end-to-end security for the enterprise.
• Virtualization:Comprehensive suite of Virtualization features including L2/L3 VPN, full MPLS, EVN, VRF aware applications for NAT Netflow, GRE for v4/v6, L2 extensions with VPLS etc. to segment different user groups and serve unique security/QoS policy requirements of each of these diverse user groups.
• Application Visibility and Control (AVC):Supports enhanced application monitoring such as Flexible and Sampled NetFlow for intelligent and scalable application monitoring.
• Smart Operations:The Cisco Catalyst 6880-X supports Catalyst Instant Access^*, which allows an Instant Access Client to act as a remote line card of the Cisco Catalyst 6880-X, as well as Smart Install Director, which provides zero-touch deployment of access switches.
• High Availability:Two Cisco Catalyst 6880-X Series Switches can be combined into a VSS. In addition to high-availability VSS, provides ease of operation by providing a single point of management, eliminating the need for First Hop Routing Protocol (FHRP) and removing the reliance on Spanning Tree Protocol (STP) for link failure restoration.

^* Support of Catalyst Instant Access is available on 15.1(2)SY2 and later releases.

Product Specifications

System Specifications

Table 1 lists the system specifications for the Cisco Catalyst 6880-X Series Switch.

Table 1.             Cisco Catalyst 6880-X Series System Specifications

Table 2 provides base system scalability information.

Table 2.             Base System Scalability

^* 1K=1024

^** Requires fully populated system

^*** From March 2016, 6880-X-LE units will ship with 4 GB onboard memory

Table 3 provides port card scalability information.

Table 3.             Port Card Scalability

^* 1K=1024

Table 4 provides information about QoS features and scalability.

Table 4.             QoS Features and Scalability

Table 5 provides information about security features and scalability.

Table 5.             Security Features and Scalability

Table 6 provides information about MPLS and virtualization features.

Table 6.          MPLS and Virtualization Features

^* For optimal performance, it is recommended to use chassis with similar memory capacity

Table 7 provides information about Netflow and Multicast Features.

Table 7.             Netflow and Multicast Features

Table 8 provides information about supported optics for Cisco Catalyst 6880-X Base System and Port Cards.

Table 8.          Pluggable Optics for Cisco Catalyst 6880-X Base System and Port Cards

^* The base system or individual port card supports up to 8 SFP-10G-ZR modules in a 2x8 SFP cage. To meet the thermal requirement the SFP-10G-ZR modules should be deployed on port 1 to 4, or port 13 to 16 (the outer two columns) on the base system or individual port card. A fully populated Catalyst 6880-X system can support 40 SFP-10G-ZR modules.

^** Support of GLC-GE-100FX is available on 15.1(2)SY2 and later releases.

^*** Only version -02 or later is supported.

Table 9 provides information about software packaging.

Table 9.            Software Packaging

^* Support of port card is available on 15.1(2)SY2 and later releases.

Cisco ONE Software

Cisco ONE Software for Access Switching is available for the Cisco Catalyst 6880-X Series Switch.

Cisco ONE Software is a new way for customers to purchase and use our infrastructure software. It offers a simplified consumption model, centered on common customer scenarios in the data center, WANs, and LANs.

Cisco ONE Software and services provide customers with four primary benefits:

• Software suites that address typical customer use scenarios at an attractive price
• Investment protection of their software purchase through software services-enabled license portability
• Access to ongoing innovation and new technology with Cisco Software Support Service (SWSS)
• Flexible licensing models to smoothly distribute customer's software spend over time

For ordering information for Cisco ONE Software for the Cisco Catalyst 6880-X Series Switch, go to https://www.cisco.com/c/en/us/products/software/one-access/switching-part-numbers.html.

Ordering Information

Table 10 lists the ordering information for the Cisco Catalyst 6880-X Series chassis. To place an order, visit the Cisco ordering homepage.

Table 10.          Ordering Information

 Cisco Catalyst 6880-X Multi Rate Port Card (XL Tables) # C6880-X-16P10G