ABSTRACT
Chapter 8 describes the different architectures of the Catalyst 6500 Series switch/routers based on the Cisco Supervisor Engine 720. The Supervisor Engine 720 supports a 720 Gb/s crossbar switch fabric that is built into the Supervisor Engine baseboard itself which makes the need for a standalone switch fabric module (that will take up a separate chassis slot) not necessary. The Supervisor Engine 720 also supports connectivity to a 32 Gb/s shared switching bus. The Catalyst 6500 with Supervisor Engine 720 has packet forwarding performance of up to 400 million Mpps, and supports a wider range of chassis options with slots capacities ranging from 3 to 13 slots.
