Supervisor Engines

nelson.garcia · ‎03-15-2010

I'm currently studying for my BCMSN, I keep hearing a lot of talk about Supervisor engines. As I work for a small-medium sized company ~100 employees, I don't have much exposure to higher end switches using supervisor. The best switch we have is a Catalyst 3560 ( I love these ).

My question is, what do the different Supervisor engines do? In laymen terms. What benefits do they offer? Any good documents?

Leo Laohoo · ‎03-15-2010

The Supervisor Engines, in the simplest of sense, is the heart and brains of the chassis. It's like the 3560 that you so love minus the ASICs and ports.

nelson.garcia · ‎03-15-2010

So is it like a module added on top of a switch? Like do you buy a switch with 48 ports but it also has a supervisor engine (another bit of hardware built into it for added features and functionality, or is standalone?

Leo Laohoo · ‎03-15-2010

It's like buying a car. You buy the chassis then add the Supervisor Engine (as the engines). Next you choose whether you want a two or four seater (24 or 48-port line cards). Do you want leather seats (PoE enable and/or 10/100/1000Base)? How about airconditioning (Wireless Service Module or others)?

Another analogy is akin to buying an airplane from Boeing, Airbus, Gulfstream, ARJ or Bombadier.

nelson.garcia · ‎03-15-2010

lol, wasn't expecting that analogy. Thanks, leolaohoo, that was very helpful.

Leo Laohoo · ‎03-15-2010

Thanks for the ratings. Glad to be of some assistance.

Reza Sharifi · ‎03-15-2010

Hey Leo,

I like your car analogy

Reza

Leo Laohoo · ‎03-15-2010

Thanks Reza. I was thinking of using the MacDonalds analogy but I'm afraid of offending some people.