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Cisco Catalyst 6500 Series Product Overview
The Catalyst 6500 series provides a modular switching system with chassis options of 3, 6, 9, and 13 slots, supporting power supplies from 950 W up to 6000 W (6500‑E and 6513 models). It delivers high‑capacity backplane bandwidth (32 Gbps shared bus, 256 Gbps, and 720 Gbps matrices) and forwarding rates up to 400 mpps, making it suitable for campus, data‑center, and carrier networks.
The platform integrates a wide range of services, including security, content exchange, voice, and wireless modules, and supports advanced features such as stateful failover (1‑3 s), MPLS, IPv6, and QoS. Redundant power, fans, and hot‑swappable components ensure high availability, while a common module set and Cisco IOS software simplify management across deployments. This manual is written in Chinese.
Cisco Catalyst 6500 specifications
| Maximum power supply (6500‑E) | 4000 W |
|---|---|
| Maximum power supply (6513) | 6000 W |
| Forwarding performance (Supervisor Engine 720) | 400 mpps |
| Port density (10/100/1000 Mbps) | 576 ports per chassis |
All Cisco Catalyst 6500 documents by type
Disassembly, diagnostics and part numbers, for repair.
How to use the product for one specific task, with worked examples.
Questions answered in these manuals
What is the maximum power capacity of the Cisco Catalyst 6500‑E series?
The 6500‑E series supports power supplies up to 4000 W, while the 6513 model can handle up to 6000 W.
What is the forwarding rate of the Supervisor Engine 720?
The Supervisor Engine 720 provides a forwarding rate of up to 400 mpps.
What is a MAC Address Overflow attack?
It overflows the switch’s Content‑Addressable Memory (CAM) table, forcing packets for new flows to be flooded out all ports.
From: Cisco Catalyst 6500 Series Switches Layer 2 Attacks Mitigation Techniques White Paper
How can the MAC address overflow attack be mitigated on a Catalyst 6500 switch?
Mitigation includes clearing the dynamic MAC‑address table before the attack and applying configuration changes such as adjusting Ettercap settings to limit traffic generation.
From: Cisco Catalyst 6500 Series Switches Layer 2 Attacks Mitigation Techniques White Paper