With 48 Gigabit Ethernet ports, the WS-C2960X-48TS-L Catalyst 2960-X 48-Port Gigabit Ethernet Switch from Cisco is designed to be the backbone of a business network. In addition to the 48 Gigabit ports, this Cisco switch also comes equipped with 4 SFP uplink ports to support ultra fast fiber connected devices such as local area storage devices and other switches. Once configured this business class switch consumes far less power than comparable switches making it both fast and energy efficient. Managing the WS-C2960X-48TS-L has also been greatly simplified thanks to USB and Ethernet management interfaces.

Network administrators have a wealth of tools at their fingertips with this Cisco switch. A variety of high performance routing features including IP unicast routing protocols, advanced IP unicast routing protocols, policy-based routing, hot standby routing protocols and more give the network admin complete control over the flow of data through the switch. Network security is also extremely important and this Cisco switch provides MAC-based VLAN assignment, Cisco TrustSec capabilities, 802.1X functionality, Cisco Threat Defense, support for private VLANs, and more to keep network connections secure and keep intruders from accessing the network. Redundancy is also essential in keeping the network up and running. Redundancy features including Cross-stack EtherChannel, Flexlink, 802.1s/w protocols, Cisco hot standby router protocol, and switch-port auto-recovery provide avenues to keep the network operating while preventing outages.

Network Security

MAC-based VLAN assignment enables different users to authenticate on different VLANs. This feature enables each user to have a different data VLAN on the same interface.Cisco TrustSec uses SXP to simplify security and policy enforcement throughout the network.Comprehensive 802.1x features to control access to the network, including flexible authentication, 802.1x monitor mode, and RADIUS change of authorization.IPv6 first-hop security enhances layer-2 and layer-3 network access from proliferating IPv6 devices especially BYOD devices. It protects against rogue router advertisements, address spoofing, fake DHCP replies, and other risks introduced by IPv6 technology.Device sensor and device classifier enable seamless versatile device profiles including BYOD devices. They also enable Cisco Identity Services Engine (ISE) to provision identity based security policies.Cisco Trust Anchor technology enables easy distribution of a single universal image by verifying the authenticity of iOS images. This technology allows the switch to perform iOS integrity checks at boot-up by verifying the signature, verifying the trusted asset under management and authenticating the license.Cisco threat defense features including port security, dynamic ARP inspection, and IP source guard.Multi-domain authentication allows an IP phone and a PC to authenticate on the same switch port while placing them on appropriate voice and data VLAN.Access Control Lists (ACLs) for IPv6 and IPv4 for security and QoS ACEs: 
-VLAN ACLs on all VLANs prevent unauthorized data flows from being bridged within VLANs. 
-Router ACLs define security policies on routed interfaces for control-plane and data-plane traffic. IPv6 ACLs can be applied to filter IPv6 traffic. 
-Port-based ACLs for layer 2 interfaces allow security policies to be applied on individual switch ports.Secure Shell (SSH) Protocol, Kerberos, and Simple Network Management Protocol Version 3 (SNMPv3) provide network security by encrypting administrator traffic during telnet and SNMP sessions. SSH Protocol, Kerberos, and the cryptographic version of SNMPv3 require a special cryptographic software image because of U.S. export restrictions.Switched Port Analyzer (SPAN), with bidirectional data support, allows Cisco Intrusion Detection System (IDS) to take action when an intruder is detected.TACACS+ and RADIUS authentication facilitates centralized control of the switch and restricts unauthorized users from altering the configuration.MAC Address Notification allows administrators to be notified of users added to or removed from the network.Multi-level security on console access prevents unauthorized users from altering the switch configuration.Bridge Protocol Data Unit (BPDU) guard shuts down spanning tree port fast-enabled interfaces when BPDUs are received to avoid accidental topology loops.Spanning Tree Root Guard (STRG) prevents edge devices not in the network administrator's control from becoming spanning tree protocol root nodes.IGMP filtering provides multi-cast authentication by filtering out non-subscribers and limits the number of concurrent multi-cast streams available per port.Dynamic VLAN assignment is supported through implementation of VLAN membership policy server client capability to provide flexibility in assigning ports to VLANs. Dynamic VLAN facilitates the fast assignment of IP addresses.

Redundancy and Resiliency

Cross-stack EtherChannel provides the ability to configure Cisco EtherChannel technology across different members of the stack for high resiliency.Flexlink provides link redundancy with convergence time less than 100 milliseconds.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 offer the benefit of Layer 2 load balancing and distributed processing.Per-VLAN Rapid Spanning Tree (PVRST+) allows rapid spanning-tree re-convergence on a per-VLAN spanning-tree basis, without requiring the implementation of spanning-tree instances.Switch-port auto-recovery (error disable) automatically attempts to reactivate a link that is disabled because of a network error.

Enhanced Quality of Service

Up to eight egress queues per port and strict priority queuing so that the high priority packets are serviced ahead of all other traffic.Shaped Round Robin (SRR) scheduling and Weighted Tail Drop (WTD) congestion avoidance.Flow-based rate limiting and up to 256 aggregate or individual polices per port.802.1p Class of Service (CoS) and Differentiated Services Code Point (DSCP) classification, with marking and reclassification on a per-packet basis by source and destination IP address, MAC address, or Layer 4 TCP/UDP port number.The Cisco Committed Information Rate (CIR) function provides bandwidth in increments as low as 8 Kb/s.Rate limiting is provided based on source and destination IP address, source, and destination MAC address, Layer 4 TCP/UDP information, or any combination of these fields, using QoS ACLs (IP ACLs or MAC ACLs), class maps, and policy maps.

Application Visibility

The switch supports NetFlow Lite, which enables IT teams to understand the mix of traffic on their network and identify anomalies by capturing and recording specific packet flows. NetFlow Lite supports flexible sampling of the traffic, and exports flow data in the NetFlow Version 9 format for analysis on a wide range of Cisco and third-party collectors.

Cisco Catalyst SmartOperations

Cisco AutoConfig services determine the level of network access provided to an endpoint based on the type of the endpoint device. This feature also permits hard-binding between the end device and the interface.Cisco Smart Install services enable minimal-touch deployment by providing automated Cisco iOS software image installation and configuration when new switches are connected to the network. This enables network administrators to remotely manage Cisco IOS software image installs and upgrades.Cisco auto SmartPorts services enable automatic configuration of switch ports as devices connect to the switch, with settings optimized for the device type resulting in zero-touch port-policy provisioning.Cisco auto QoS is a service that automatic configuration of QoS that allows switch to manage QoS policies based on traffic types resulting in zero-touch traffic engineering. Auto-QoS supports 8 egress queues.Cisco Smart Troubleshooting is an extensive array of diagnostic commands and system health checks within the switch, including smart call home. The Cisco GOLD (Generic Online Diagnostics) and Cisco online diagnostics on switches in live networks help predicting and detecting failures quickly.

Operational Simplicity Features

Cisco WS-C2960X-48TS-L Specs