Supervisor Engine (Cisco)

The Cisco Supervisor Engine is the brain of many of Cisco's switches. The Supervisor Engine has evolved several times. While it is the management segment of many routers, the power of the switch is often much greater than that of the Supervisor Engine because one of the features of many switches is that dozens of the functions are accelerated by ASIC chips.

Abridged list of features:

• 802.1q VLAN
• Spanning Tree Protocol
• Ether Channel
• Jumbo Frames
• (E)IGRP, OSPF, RIP (2), Static Routing
• BGP, IS-IS
• QOS
• Some have Layer 3 & 4 Switching

Specifications

Supervisor Engine	Mpps[1]	Switching Layer	Bandwidth[2]	CPU Frequency	Max Ram	Max Flash	OS	Minimum IOS
1	15	2	1.2-32	25 MHz Motorola 68k	128MB	16MB	CatOS	N/A
2	30	2	18	150 MHz Mips R4700	128MB	16MB	CatOS	N/A
2+	48	4	64	266 MHz R4700	256MB	32MB	CatOS/IOS
3	15	4	?	150-300 MHz	256MB	?	IOS	12.1(8a)
4	48	4	64	333 MHz	512MB	128MB	IOS	12.1(12c)
5	136	4	102	400-800 MHz	512MB	?	IOS	12.2(18)
6	250	4	320	1.3 GHz	1GB	?	IOS	12.2(40)
720	400-450	5	720	600 MHz	2GB	64MB	CatOS/IOS
32		5	32	300 MHz			IOS
2T[3]	720	5	2080		4GB	2GB	IOS

Details

Supervisor Engine I 68EC040 Chassis: 2900, 2948G, 2980G, 4000, 4500, 5000, 5500, 6000, 6500, 7600 Supervisor Engine II MIPS R4700 Chassis: 2926, 4000, 4500, 5000, 5500, 6000, 6500, 7600 Supervisor Engine II+ MIPS R4700 Cisco Express Forwarding Chassis: 2926, 4000, 4500, 5000, 5500, 6000, 6500, 7600 Supervisor Engine III Cisco Express Forwarding Max DRAM: 256MB SD Redundant Capable Netflow accelerator card Supervisor Engine IV Cisco Express Forwarding Max Flash: 64MB (supplemental Compact Flash optional)

Supervisor Engine V Cisco Express Forwarding Chassis: 4500 Supervisor Engine 6 Cisco Express Forwarding Chassis: 4500 "E" Series Supervisor Engine 32 Cisco Express Forwarding Chassis: 6000, 6500, 7600 A low cost, reduced version of the 720 Policy Feature Card 3b MSFC 2A? Supervisor Engine 720 Cisco Express Forwarding Policy Feature Card 3A, 3B, 3BXL Chassis: 6500, 7600 MSFC1-3 Multi-Layer Switch Feature Card

See also

• Cisco IOS
• Catalyst switch
• Catalyst 6500
• Cisco Catalyst 4500 Series Switches

References

1. Million 64k Packets switched Per Second
2. in gigabits
3. http://www.cisco.com/c/en/us/products/collateral/interfaces-modules/catalyst-6500-series-supervisor-engine-2t/data_sheet_c78-648214.html

• http://www.cisco.com/en/US/products/hw/switches/ps663/products_tech_note09186a00801a5d58.shtml
• http://www.ciscosystems.com/en/US/prod/collateral/switches/ps5718/ps4324/product_data_sheet09186a00801fcaba.pdf
• http://www.cisco.ac/application/pdf/en/us/guest/products/ps4324/c1167/ccmigration_09186a008011b8da.pdf
• http://www.berkcom.com/resources/cisco/C6500_ccmigration_09186a00800887fd.pdf
• http://www.cisco.com/en/US/products/hw/switches/ps663/products_tech_note09186a0080094645.shtml
• Lammle, Todd; Spangenberg, Ward; Padjen, Robert (1999). Compton, James (ed.). CCNP: Cisco Lan Switch Configuration (Hardback)|format= requires |url= (help). Cisco Certification Series (1st ed.). San Francisco: SYBEX, Network Press. p. 624. ISBN 0-7821-2571-9.
• Rossi, Louis; Rossi, Louis; Rossi, Thomas (2000). Elliot, Steven (ed.). Cisco Catalyst LAN Switching (Softback)|format= requires |url= (help). Cisco Technical Expert (1st ed.). New York: Mcgraw Hill. p. 394. ISBN 0-07-134982-0.
• Chan, Jason; Arteaga, Frank (2004). Cisco catalyst switch troubleshooting handbook.
• Building Cisco Multilayer Switched Networks.
• Cisco LAN Switch Configuration Handbook.