Cisco Catalyst 2960-S and 2960 Series Switches Enable Cisco Borderless Network
Borderless Networks, a Cisco architecture, deliver the new workspace experience, connecting anyone, anywhere, using any device, to any resource securely, reliably, and transparently. Cisco?s Borderless Networks architecture addresses primary IT and business challenges to help create a truly borderless experience by bringing interactions closer to the employee and customer.

Borderless experience is only possible with intelligent network elements designed and architected to meet the needs of a global workspace. Cisco Network Access is a primary component of this architecture, enabling various borderless network services such as mobility, security, sustainability, EnergyWise and ease of operations for increased productivity and operational efficiency. When network access is intelligent, it knows the identity of the user, as well as where the user is on the network. It knows what is connecting to the network, to automatically provision the network for QoS and delivery. It becomes services-aware to optimize user experience. Only with intelligent access network, your enterprise can go borderless securely and transparently. Your business can save energy, simplify operations with better business efficiency, and have an optimized total cost of ownership.

Cisco Network Access for Borderless solution focuses on the following primary areas:

– Sustainability
– EnergyWise
– Ease of operations
– Borderless security
– Borderless experience
Sustainability
Cisco Catalyst switching solutions enable greener practices through measurable power efficiency, integrated services, and continuous innovations such as Cisco EnergyWise, an enterprise wide solution that monitors and conserves energy with customized policies. Together, Cisco EnergyWise technology and Cisco Catalyst switches reduce greenhouse gas (GhG) emissions and increase energy cost savings and sustainable business behavior. Sustainability features in the Cisco Catalyst 2960-S and 2960 Series Switches include the following features sets:

– Cisco EnergyWise technology
– Efficient switch operation
– Intelligent power management
Cisco EnergyWise Technology
Cisco EnergyWise is an innovative architecture, added to fixed configuration switches, promoting companywide sustainability by reducing energy consumption across an entire corporate infrastructure and affecting more than 50percent of global greenhouse gas emissions created by worldwide building infrastructure, a much greater effect than the 2 percent generated by the IT industry. Cisco EnergyWise enables companies to measure the power consumption of network infrastructure and network-attached devices and manage power consumption with specific policies, reducing power consumption to realize increased cost savings, potentially affecting any powered device.

EnergyWise encompasses a highly intelligent network-based approach to communicate messages that measure and control energy between network devices and endpoints. The network discovers Cisco EnergyWise-manageable devices, monitors their power consumption, and takes action based on business rules to reduce power consumption. EnergyWise uses a unique domain-naming system to query and summarize information from large sets of devices, making it simpler than traditional network management capabilities. Cisco EnergyWise?s management interfaces allow facilities and network management applications to communicate with endpoints and each other using the network as a unifying fabric. The management interface uses standard SNMP or TCP to integrate Cisco and third-party management systems.

Efficient Switch Operation
Cisco Catalyst 2960-S and 2960 Series Switches, designed and engineered by Cisco, provide optimum power savings, low power operations for industry best-in-class power management, and power consumption capabilities. The Catalyst 2960-S ports are capable of reduced power modes so that ports not in use can move into a lower power utilization state.

Intelligent Power over Ethernet Management
The Cisco Catalyst 2960-S PoE models support the latest PoE+ devices including Cisco IP phones and Cisco Aironet WLAN access points providing up to 30W of power per port, as well as any IEEE 802.3af-compliant end device.

– Per port power consumption command allows customers to specify maximum power setting on an individual port
– Per port PoE power sensing measures actual power being drawn, enabling more intelligent control of powered devices
– Cisco Discovery Protocol Version 2 allows switches to negotiate a more granular power setting when connecting to a Cisco powered device such as IP phones or access points than what is provided by IEEE classification
– The PoE MIB provides proactive visibility into power usage and allows customers to set different power-level thresholds
Ease of Operations
The Cisco Catalyst 2960-S and 2960 Series Switches help reduce the operating costs through:

– Cisco Catalyst Smart Operations
– Easy to use deployment and control features
– Advanced, intelligent network management tools

Cisco Catalyst Smart Operations
Cisco Catalyst Smart Operations is a comprehensive set of capabilities that simplify LAN deployment, configuration, and troubleshooting. Cisco Catalyst Smart Operations enable zero touch installation and replacement of switches, fast upgrade, as well as ease of troubleshooting with reduced operational cost.

Cisco Catalyst Smart Operations is a set of features that includes Smart Install, Auto Smartports, Smart Configuration, and Smart Troubleshooting to enhance operational excellence:

– Cisco Smart Install is a transparent plug-and-play technology to configure the Cisco IOS Software image and switch configuration without user intervention. Smart Install utilizes dynamic IP address allocation and the assistance of other switches to facilitate installation providing transparent network plug and play.
– Cisco Auto Smartports provide automatic configuration as devices connect to the switch port, allowing auto detection and plug and play of the device onto the network.
– Cisco Smart Configuration provides a single point of management for a group of switches and in addition adds the ability archive and backup configuration files to a file server or switch allowing seamless zero touch switch replacement.
– Cisco Smart Troubleshooting is an extensive array of debug diagnostic commands and system health checks within the switch, including Generic Online Diagnostics (GOLD) and Onboard Failure Logging (OBFL).
Easy to Use Deployment and Control Features

– Automatic QoS (AutoQoS) simplifies QoS configuration in voice over IP (VoIP) networks by issuing interface and global switch commands to detect Cisco IP phones, classify traffic, and help enable egress queue configuration.
– Stacking Master configuration management and Cisco FlexStack stacking helps ensure that all switches are automatically upgraded when the master switch receives a new software version. Automatic software version checking and updating help ensure that all stack members have the same software version.
– Dynamic Host Configuration Protocol (DHCP) autoconfiguration of multiple switches through a boot server eases switch deployment.
– Auto-negotiation on all ports automatically selects half- or full-duplex transmission mode to optimize bandwidth.
– Dynamic Trunking Protocol (DTP) facilitates dynamic trunk configuration across all switch ports.
– Port Aggregation Protocol (PAgP) automates the creation of Cisco Fast EtherChannel groups or Gigabit EtherChannel groups to link to another switch, router, or server.
– Link Aggregation Control Protocol (LACP) allows the creation of Ethernet channeling with devices that conform to IEEE 802.3ad. This feature is similar to Cisco EtherChannel technology and PAgP.
– Automatic media-dependent interface crossover (MDIX) automatically adjusts transmit and receive pairs if an incorrect cable type (crossover or straight-through) is installed.
– Unidirectional Link Detection Protocol (UDLD) and Aggressive UDLD allow unidirectional links caused by incorrect fiber-optic wiring or port faults to be detected and disabled on fiber-optic interfaces.
– Switching Database Manager (SDM) templates for access, routing, and VLAN deployment allow the administrator to easily maximize memory allocation to the desired features based on deployment-specific requirements.
– Local Proxy Address Resolution Protocol (ARP) works in conjunction with Private VLAN Edge to minimize broadcasts and maximize available bandwidth.
– Internet Group Management Protocol (IGMP) Snooping for IPv4 and IPv6 MLD v1 and v2 Snooping provide fast client joins and leaves of multicast streams and limit bandwidth-intensive video traffic to only the requestors.
– Multicast VLAN Registration (MVR) continuously sends multicast streams in a multicast VLAN while isolating the streams from subscriber VLANs for bandwidth and security reasons.
– Per-port broadcast, multicast, and unicast storm control prevents faulty end stations from degrading overall systems performance.
– Voice VLAN simplifies telephony installations by keeping voice traffic on a separate VLAN for easier administration and troubleshooting.
– Cisco VLAN Trunking Protocol (VTP) supports dynamic VLANs and dynamic trunk configuration across all switches.
– Remote Switch Port Analyzer (RSPAN) allows administrators to remotely monitor ports in a Layer 2 switch network from any other switch in the same network.
– For enhanced traffic management, monitoring, and analysis, the Embedded Remote Monitoring (RMON) software agent supports four RMON groups (history, statistics, alarms, and events).
– Layer 2 traceroute eases troubleshooting by identifying the physical path that a packet takes from source to destination.
– Trivial File Transfer Protocol (TFTP) reduces the cost of administering software upgrades by downloading from a centralized location.
– Network Timing Protocol (NTP) provides an accurate and consistent timestamp to all intranet switches.

Borderless Security
The Cisco Catalyst 2960-S and 2960 Series Switches provide superior Layer 2 threat defense capabilities for mitigating man-in-the-middle attacks (such as MAC, IP, and ARP spoofing). TrustSec, a primary element of Borderless Security Architecture, helps enterprise customers secure their networks, data and resources with policy-based access control, identity and role-aware networking, pervasive integrity, and confidentiality. The borderless security is enabled by the following feature sets in the Cisco Catalyst 2960-S and 2960 Series Switches:

– Threat defense
– Cisco TrustSec
– Other advanced security features
Threat Defense

Cisco Integrated Security Features is an industry-leading solution available on Cisco Catalyst Switches that proactively protects your critical network infrastructure. Delivering powerful, easy-to-use tools to effectively prevent the most common and potentially damaging Layer 2 security threats, Cisco Integrated Security Features provides robust security throughout the network. Cisco Integrated Security Features include Port Security, DHCP Snooping, Dynamic ARP Inspection, and IP Source guard.

– Port Security secures the access to an access or trunk port based on MAC address. It limits the number of learned MAC addresses to deny MAC address flooding.
– DHCP Snooping prevents malicious users from spoofing a DHCP server and sending out bogus addresses. This feature is used by other primary security features to prevent a number of other attacks such as ARP poisoning.
– Dynamic ARP Inspection (DAI) helps ensure user integrity by preventing malicious users from exploiting the insecure nature of the ARP protocol.
– IP source guard prevents a malicious user from spoofing or taking over another user?s IP address by creating a binding table between the client?s IP and MAC address, port, and VLAN.
Cisco TrustSec

TrustSec secures access to the network, enforces security policies, and delivers standard based security solutions such as 802.1X enabling secure collaboration and policy compliance. TrustSec capabilities reflect Cisco thought leadership, innovations, and commitment to customer success. These new capabilities include:

– Flexible authentication that supports multiple authentication mechanisms including 802.1X, MAC Authentication Bypass and web authentication using a single, consistent configuration.
– Open mode that creates a user friendly environment for 802.1X operations.
– Integration of device profiling technology and guest access handling with Cisco switching to significantly improve security while reducing deployment and operational challenges.
– RADIUS Change of Authorization and downloadable calls for comprehensive policy management capabilities.
– 802.1X Supplicant with Network Edge Access Transport (NEAT) enables extended secure access where compact switches in the conference rooms have the same level of security as switches inside the locked wiring closet.
Other Advanced Security Features

Other Advanced Security features include but are not limited to:

– Private VLAN Edge provides security and isolation between switch ports, which helps ensure that users cannot snoop on other users? traffic.
– Multidomain Authentication allows an IP phone and a PC to authenticate on the same switch port while placing them on appropriate voice and data VLAN.
– Port-based ACLs for Layer 2 interfaces allow security policies to be applied on individual switch ports.
– Secure Shell (SSH) Protocol, Kerberos, and Simple Network Management Protocol Version 3 (SNMPv3) provide network security by encrypting administrator traffic during Telnet and SNMP sessions. SSH Protocol, Kerberos, and the cryptographic version of SNMPv3 require a special cryptographic software image because of U.S. export restrictions.
– Bidirectional data support on the Switched Port Analyzer (SPAN) port allows Cisco Intrusion Detection System (IDS) to take action when an intruder is detected.
– TACACS+ and RADIUS authentication facilitates centralized control of the switch and restricts unauthorized users from altering the configuration.
– MAC Address Notification allows administrators to be notified of users added to or removed from the network.
– Multilevel security on console access prevents unauthorized users from altering the switch configuration.
– Bridge protocol data unit (BPDU) Guard shuts down Spanning Tree PortFast-enabled interfaces when BPDUs are received to avoid accidental topology loops.
– Spanning Tree Root Guard (STRG) prevents edge devices not in the network administrator?s control from becoming Spanning Tree Protocol root nodes.
– IGMP filtering provides multicast authentication by filtering out nonsubscribers and limits the number of concurrent multicast streams available per port.
– Dynamic VLAN assignment is supported through implementation of VLAN Membership Policy Server client capability to provide flexibility in assigning ports to VLANs. Dynamic VLAN facilitates the fast assignment of IP addresses.
Borderless Experience
Borderless network enables enterprise mobility and business-grade video services. Industry?s first unified network (wired and wireless) location services enable tracking of mobile assets and the users of those assets for both wired and wireless devices. The true borderless experience is enabled by the following feature sets in the Cisco Catalyst 2960-S and 2960 Series Switches:

– High availability and layer 2 networking
– QoS
– Location awareness and mobility
High Availability and Layer 2 Networking

The Cisco Catalyst 2960-S Series Switches provides Cisco FlexStack stacking and both the Cisco 2960-S and 2960 Series switches provide layer 2 networking to enable resilency and availability.

Other high-availability features include but are not limited to:

– Cross-Stack EtherChannel provides the ability to configure Cisco EtherChannel technology across different members of the Cisco FlexStack for high resiliency.
– Flexlink provides link redundancy with convergence time less than 100 ms.
– IEEE 802.1s/w Rapid Spanning Tree Protocol (RSTP) and Multiple Spanning Tree Protocol (MSTP) provide rapid spanning-tree convergence independent of spanning-tree timers and also offer the benefit of Layer 2 load balancing and distributed processing. Stacked units behave as a single spanning-tree node.
– Per-VLAN Rapid Spanning Tree (PVRST+) allows rapid spanning-tree reconvergence on a per-VLAN spanning-tree basis, without requiring the implementation of spanning-tree instances.
– Switch-port autorecovery (Errdisable) automatically attempts to reactivate a link that is disabled because of a network error.