question concerning switch routing capability

Bruce Summers · ‎06-14-2009

I'm looking to build a lab for my home use. I've been looking at various switches (2900's - 3750's)...I'm looking at the descriptions of the these switches on the various vendor sites, but they dont seem to explicitly say they "support" different routing protocols, specifically OSPF...How can I best determine if a switch supports OSPF prior to doing an online purchase?

leekleybm · ‎06-14-2009

I don't know of any 2900 series switch that is able to run IP routing. For the 3XXX series - the last time I checked if you want routing capabilities beyond RIP and static - you would have to buy the Enhanced Multilayer Image (EMI) vice the Standard (SMI) in order to support OSPF, MCAST, etc.

iyde · ‎06-14-2009

Right; Cat2xxx switches are L2 switches while Cat3xxx are L3 switches where you need IP Services for dynamic routing other than RIP.

EMI = IP Services and SMI = IP Base in current software for multilayer switches.

Joseph W. Doherty · ‎06-14-2009

Within current Cisco L3 switch products, likely the 8 port Catalyst 3560-8PC with the "IP Services" (formerly EMI) image (not "IP Base" [formerly SMI]), will be the least expensive and support OSPF. (NB: with this switch series, you can buy one with the "IP Base" image and purchase an upgrade to "IP Services" [CD-3560-EMI=, about $2K, or CD-3560G-EMI=, about $4K]. As original part numbers, on this series, -S vs. -E suffixes denote IOS image.)