Catalyst 6500?

Node Man

Hi Everybody,
Just curious, does anyone here work with Catalyst 6500 or similar network switches? Is that standard Cisco training (CCNA?) How does one prepare for those in a career? What enterprises use them?

Thanks!

DevilWAH

6500 are just a layer 3 switch at the end of the day, I would not expect to see a CCNA inchagre or networks containing them. As they are generally only seen in medium to large networks due to cost and the fact that small network have no need of the extended features and throughput.

However my team in last job worked on a network containing several hundred of the things and they were all CCNA or below. But there role was to carry out minior configurations that had been written by more experienced staff.

any network may use them, its a case of designing the network, looking at the requirements and seeing what device fits the profile. the 6500 ties together features from several other products in to a single chassis/management system. As you move up the network career path from NOC duties to designing and managing networks you move from doing what others tell you to telling other people how to do things.

The 6500 is just another device, expect to have a few years of design experience before you are working on building networks that have 6500 in them. But you could end up working on them at almost any level.

lsud00d

We have 2 6509's at my office/data center...they are big mumba jumbas!

coty24

I was, I didn't have CCNA either.... Medium Enterprise level

vanquish23

I work with 200 of them. Now we are going to Nexus 7K/5K/2K for Edge/Core/Access.

shodown

Yeah they are just a switch at the end of the day. The thing is learning the capability of them. I have used them as Voicegateways, WAN routers(30,000 user wan) as a core switch and data center switch. The only thing that changed about them was the SUP cards and the modules we had in them, any network guy/gal can use them the experience comes from learning how to use them.