Catalyst switches

Here's a question that's been bugging me that I should know already. What's the difference between a regular switch and a "catalyst" switch? I've seen it often enough, but I never thought to ask about it.

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Slowhand

Catalyst is the brand-name of Cisco's most popular series of switches. When someone says they're using a "Catalyst switch", it just means that they're working with a Cisco switch. Other companies have names for their switch-lines as well, like HP's ProCurve or Dell's PowerConnect.

gorebrush

Slowhand pretty much wrapped this up in a single post

Computer idiot

Ok, thanks. I had thought that there was a difference between a regular switch and a "catalyst" switch. My mistake.

stuh84

There is a difference between older Cisco switches and newer ones, in that the older ones are using CatOS, and the newer ones are using IOS (plus other variants like NX-OS if you start including the Nexus boxes), however the name alone does not distinguish between them, its the model number and age.

chmorin

stuh84 wrote: »

There is a difference between older Cisco switches and newer ones, in that the older ones are using CatOS, and the newer ones are using IOS (plus other variants like NX-OS if you start including the Nexus boxes), however the name alone does not distinguish between them, its the model number and age.

And the supervisor module, in some cases.