Cisco, Network Equipment Resource: Cisco Catalyst 2960-X and Catalyst 2960-XR Review

The Catalyst 2960 got stacking via the2960-S model a couple of years ago. It also got the ability to do static routes which was a nice feature. Cisco 2960-X series debut at Cisco Partner Summit 2013. Cisco released the new Catalyst 2960-X series by doubling its stacked port density, stacking bandwidth, buffers and CPU performance. It is the next generation of its wildly successful Catalyst 2K switches. The Cisco 2960-X and -XR are available in 24 or 48 port configurations. Uplinks are either 2x 10 Gbit SPF+ or 4x 1 Gbit SFP. The PoE models can support 370W or 740W of power.

The 2960-X Series provides up to 80 Gbps of stack bandwidth which is 2x more compared to the 2960-S. It is now also possible to stack up to 8 switches compared to the earlier maximum of 4. The 2960-S model uses FlexStack while the newer -X and -XR models uses FlexStack-Plus. FlexStack-Plus supports detecting stack port operational state in hardware and change the forwarding according to it. This takes 100 ms or less. The older model does it in CPU which can take 1 or 2 seconds.

Here are some notable differences between 2960-X and -XR compared to 2960-S.

Dual core CPU @ 600 MHz. 2960-S has single core
2960-XR has support for dual power supplies
256 MB of flash for -XR, 128 MB for -X. The S model has 64 MB
512 MB of DRAM compared to 256 for 2960-S
1k active VLANs compared to 255 for 2960-S
48 Etherchannel groups for -XR, 24 for -X and 6 for -S
4 MB of egress buffers instead of 2 MB
4 SPAN sessions instead of 2
32k MACs for -XR, 16k for -X and 8k for -S
24k unicast routes for -XR, 16 static routes for -X and -S

The newer models also support Netflow lite, hibernation mode and EEE. The 2960-XR does support dynamic routing. It has support for RIP, OSPF stub, OSPFv3 stub, EIGRP stub, HSRP, VRRP and PIM.

Here are some performance numbers:

Cisco 2960-X Lan Lite has 100 Gbps of switching bandwidth and 64 active VLANS. The Catalyst 2960-X Lan Base has 216 Gbps of switching bandwidth and 1023 active VLANs. The same holds true for 2960-XR with IP Lite feature set. The 2960-S had a maximum of 255 VLANs and 176 Gbps switching bandwidth. Depending on model the 2960-X tops out at 130.9 Mpps compared to 101.2 for 2960-S.

The switches also have added support for IPv6. Notable features are: