Wednesday, January 30, 2019

Q&A: LAN Base in 2960X Switches?

A question from a user: “Which license do Cisco 2960X or 2960XR supported for ‘Layer 3 features with routed access (Open Shortest Path First [OSPF]), static routing, and Routing Information Protocol (RIP)’”


LAN Base is a powerful license for layer 2 access switches. Its broad range of access features covers all LAN Lite capabilities plus more robust features such as VTPv3 and FlexLinks. VTP version 3 offers better administrative control over VLAN topology information sharing to reduce unintended or disruptive changes. It also adds more VLAN environment support including expanded ISL VLAN support range. FlexLinks increase Layer 2 resiliency by adding a pair of fast converging active and backup links between access and distribution switches.
LAN Base allows layer 3 routing by adding static routing support. Many strong security capabilities are added in LAN Base, too. Examples include Flexible Authentication, Radius Change of Authorization and advanced 802.1X features.
On the management side, a long list of capabilities becomes available in LAN Base including a wider range of MIBs, Ingress policing, Trust Boundary, AutoQoS, and DSCP mapping. Here is compare: https://www.cisco.com/c/en/us/td/docs/switches/lan/catalyst3750x_3560x/software/release/15-0_2_se/configuration/guide/3750x_cg/swintro.pdf

Q. What Cisco IOS Software feature sets are supported in Cisco Catalyst 2960-X Series Switches?
A. The Cisco Catalyst 2960-X Series come with a common universal image and supports LAN Lite, LAN Base, and IP Lite feature sets, as shown in Table 1.
Table1. Feature sets supported in the 2960-X Series
Platform
IP Lite
(Layer 3)
LAN Base
(Layer 2)
LAN Lite
(Basic Layer 2)
2960-XR
Yes
No
No
2960-X
No
Yes
Yes

Q. What features does IP Lite bring to the 2960-XR switch models?
A. IP Lite introduced enterprise access Layer 3 features to the 2960-XR switch models. IP Lite is subset of IP Base features. Some of the IP Lite features are:
●   Routing Information Protocol (RIP) v1
●   Routing Information Protocol (RIP) v2
●   Open Shortest Path First (OSPF) v2 stub
●   Open Shortest Path First (OSPF) v3 stub
●   Enhanced Interior Gateway Routing Protocol (EIGRP) stub
●   Equal-cost routing
●   Hot Standby Router Protocol (HSRP)
●   Protocol Independent Multicast PIM (Sparse Mode, Dense Mode, Sparse Dense Mode, Source Specific Multicast) stub
●   Virtual Router Redundancy Protocol (VRRP) for IPv4
●   Private VLAN
●   IPv6 First Hop Security source guard
●   Per-VLAN and per-port policers

Q. Do I need a software license for the Cisco Catalyst 2960-X Series Switches?
A. No. Cisco Catalyst 2960-X Series Switches use the Universal image, but no license is required. The feature set is bound to the hardware model type and cannot be changed. For convenience, a single software image is used for all Cisco Catalyst 2960-X and 2960-XR switches, regardless of whether they are IP Lite, LAN Base, or LAN Lite models.

Q. Can a Cisco Catalyst 2960-X Series Switch feature set license be upgraded?
A. No. The feature set is bound to the hardware model. To get the features and capabilities of IP Lite, you must purchase an IP Lite (2960-XR) switch.
So, 2960-X cannot support IP Lite functions, you must use a 2960-XR with IP Lite image.

Cisco 2960-X/XR Resources:

More Cisco 2960-X/XR Topics:

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