Cisco switches can be used as plug-and-play devices out of the box but they also offer an enormous amount of features. Although the main purpose of the switch is to provide inter-connectivity in Layer 2 for the connected devices of the network, there are myriad features and functionalities that can be configured on Cisco Switches. […]
Cisco Switch Port Security Configuration and Best Practices
Introduction One of the best practices in network security is to try and stop security threats from the entry-point of a LAN network. This means that the switch can play an important role in network security since it’s the entry-point of the network. For example, port- security on Cisco switches can be used to stop […]
How to Configure Private VLANs on Cisco Switches
There are some situations where you have a single Layer3 subnet hosting several servers but you need to restrict network connectivity between the servers, although they reside in the same L3 subnet. This scenario is very common in hosting environments where you offer collocation for customers but for security reasons you want to keep their traffic […]
VLAN access-map (VACL) Example Configuration on Cisco Switch
In this post I will discuss Vlan access control lists (VACL), also called VLAN access Map or VLAN Map. A VLAN Access-map allows us to filter incoming and outgoing traffic in a switch Vlan. VLAN access-map configuration is very similar to the Route-map configuration. A Vlan access-map is placed on the whole Vlan, which means […]
Cisco Switching Products
Cisco Systems Inc. supports a broad range of local area network (LAN) switching architecture technologies and platforms. The general minimal requirements that the Cisco switching platforms are designed to address include the following: High-performance switched Ethernet, capable of delivering 100 Mbps and 1Gbps to the desktop, and 1Gbps or 10Gbps uplinks. Quality of Service (QoS) […]
Cisco Switch Network Design
I was browsing the Cisco support forum the other day and found the following question post which is about designing a Cisco switched network. Some useful answers are given, so I thought I would repost here for my blog readers. You will find useful tips about switch port dimensioning, redundancy etc. I Hope you find […]
Cisco Switches with Power over Ethernet PoE
Cisco has been supporting the standardized 802.3af power over ethernet feature since 2004. Catalyst switches with PoE are available as 10/100 PoE or even 10/100/1000 PoE. The Power over Ethernet feature is an excellent option for deployments of Cisco IP Phones. Wireless access points and security cameras can also be powered by PoE switches. The […]