CISCO CATALYST 3550 Series Switches The switches that belong to this series are stackable and are multilayer switches that provide QoS, high availability and security that are responsible for enhancing the operations taking place on the network. They have a wide range of Gigabit Ethernet and Fast Ethernet configurations and hence are the best option for use in the enterprise and metro access. Additional services like advanced QoS, rate limitation, ACLs, IP routing (high performance), multicast management can be added by the customers to these switches and they still continue to function in the traditional switching technique. The 3550 Switches are very intelligent as they have a application called Cisco Network Assistant setup in them. This is a free application and provides centralized management in order to simplify the administrative duties of routers, switches and the WAPs. This application has a GUI interface that is user friendly. Configuration, Troubleshooting, Network Enabling and Monitoring are made simple using this application. The 3550 Series also has software embedded in it called the Cisco Cluster Management. This software allows the configuration and troubleshooting of the switches at the same time with the help of a web browser. This software also simplifies the converged network implementation and the intelligent network service implementation by providing new wizards for configurations. The features that 3550 series include are; Availability /Scalability Perspective High Performance IP Routing Stacking Ultra scalable and flexible Superior Redundancy for Fault Backup Easy to Deploy and Use Integrated features for Optimizing the Bandwidth Security Perspective Security Authentication of User and device Network Administration security User tracking Services for Identity Based network and granular access control
QoS/ Control Perspective Granular rate limitation Advanced QoS Manageability Perspective Performance Management Cluster management suite Standards Indicators Y2K Power connectors CiscoWorks Support Connectors and Cabling Power Requirements Dimensions and Weight Acoustic noise Environmental changes Mean time between failure Basic configuration steps When the console of the switch is opened, we first see that the switch is in the User mode, where > is followed by the switch name. To enter the privilege mode just type enable. A # symbol will replace the > symbol. In the privilege mode the previous configuration files could be deleted so that the switch could be configured from scratch. Switch#write erase Now the switch could be reloaded using the following command Switch#reload - The switch would reboot at this point. All the configurations should be done in the Global Configuration Mode. To enter into the configuration mode just type in the command configure terminal Switch(config)#
The name of the switch could be changed by entering the following command Switch(config)#hostname <desired switch name> A secret password can be set and enabled for the configuration mode. Switch(config)# enable secret <password> Securing the console port and enabling it with a login command Switch(config)#line console 0 Switch(config-line)#password <password> Switch(config-line)#login Securing the vty ports and enabling it with login command Switch(config)#line vty 0 4-5 ports Switch(config-line)#password <password> Switch(config-line)#login The RAM of the switch can be accessed using the following command Switch#show running-config For security purposes, to make sure that the passwords are encrypted in the configuration files the encryption service has to be enabled. Switch(config)#service password-encryption To save the configuration changes that were done up to this point use the following command. Switch#copy running-config startup-config - so now the configuration file has been copied to the startup config file and whenever the switch boots up it would have this configuration. To view the startup configuration just type in the following command Switch#show startup-config
To check if the VLAN interface is up or the status of any other interfaces enter the following command Switch#show ip interface brief To turn on an interface type the following command Switch(config)#interface vlan 1 Switch(config)#no shutdown Setting up IP addresses and default gateway for the interfaces. VLAN1 is the default VLAN on the switch. The virtual interface of the VLAN1 would be accessed first to set the ip address. Switch(config)#interface vlan 1 Switch(config-if)#ip address <ip> <subnet mask> Switch(config-if)#exit Default gateway can now be setup. Switch(config)#ip default-gateway <gateway ip> The configuration can be saved at this point to the startup config. The fast Ethernet interfaces are set up by assigning them to VLANs Switch(config)#interface fastethernet 0/1 Switch(config)#switchport mode access Switch(config)#switchport access vlan 1 - here fastethernet 0/1 interface is associated to VLAN1 The VLANs can be created by using the following command. Switch(config)#vlan <vlan id> - for example VLAN 20 A specific name can be given to the VLANs using the command below; Switch(config)# vlan 1 Switch(config)#name <vlan name>
There are many other things that could be configured but this is a very basic one that every switch needs to function.