Cisco Catalyst 2960-S Series Switches

Product Overview

The Cisco^® Catalyst^® 2960-S Series Switches are fixed-configuration Gigabit Ethernet switches (Figure 1) that provide enterprise-class Layer 2 switching for campus and branch access applications. They enable reliable and secure business operations with lower total cost of ownership through a range of innovative features including FlexStack, Power over Ethernet Plus (PoE+), and Cisco Catalyst SmartOperations.

Figure 1.Cisco Catalyst 2960-S Series Switches

Product Highlights

Cisco Catalyst 2960-S switches feature:

24 or 48 Gigabit Ethernet ports

1G Small Form-Factor Pluggable (SFP) or 1G/10G SFP+ slots

Cisco FlexStack stacking with 20 Gbps of stack throughput (optional)

IEEE 802.3at-compliant PoE+ for up to 30W of power per port

Up to 740W of combined PoE/PoE+ budget

USB interfaces for management and file transfers

LAN Base or LAN Lite Cisco IOS^® Software feature set

SmartOperations tools that simplify deployment and reduce the cost of network administration

An enhanced limited lifetime hardware warranty (E-LLW), providing next-business-day replacement

Applications and Benefits

The Cisco Catalyst 2960-S Series is ideal for:

Deploying cost-effective wired connectivity in traditional desktop workspace environments

Implementing quality of service (QoS) to provide priority treatment of voice and critical business applications

Enforcing basic security policies to limit access to the network and mitigate threats

Reducing total cost of ownership through simplified operations and automation

Switch Configurations

Cisco FlexStack

Cisco FlexStack provides stacking of up to four 2960-S switches through an optional module (Figure 2).

The FlexStack stack module is hot-swappable and can be added to any Cisco Catalyst 2960-S switch with LAN

Base software. Switches connected to a stack will automatically upgrade to the stack’s Cisco IOS Software version and transparently join the stack without additional intervention.

Cisco FlexStack and Cisco IOS Software provide true stacking, with all switches in a stack acting as a single switch unit. FlexStack provides a unified data plane, unified configuration, and single IP address for switch management. The advantages of true stacking include lower total cost of ownership and higher availability through simplified management and cross-stack features including EtherChannel, SPAN, and FlexLink. Note that cross-stack features must be disabled before removing the stack module from an active stack member switch.

FlexStack also allows mixed stacking: 2960-S and 2960-SF switches can be combined to provide a combination of Gigabit and Fast Ethernet ports in a single switch stack.

Figure 2.Cisco FlexStack Switch Stack

Power over Ethernet Plus - PoE+

Cisco Catalyst 2960-S switches support both IEEE 802.3af Power over Ethernet (PoE) and IEEE 802.3at PoE+ (up to 30W per port) to deliver lower total cost of ownership for deployments that incorporate Cisco IP phones, Cisco

Aironet^® wireless access points, or other standards-compliant PoE/PoE+ end devices. PoE removes the need to supply wall power to PoE-enabled devices and eliminates the cost of adding electrical cabling and circuits that would otherwise be necessary in IP phone and WLAN deployments. Table 2 shows the total PoE/PoE+ power available in each 2960-S model.

Intelligent power management allows flexible power allocation across all ports.

Network Security

The Cisco Catalyst 2960-S Series Switches provide a range of security features to limit access to the network and mitigate threats, including:

Features to control access to the network, including Flexible Authentication, 802.1x Monitor Mode, and RADIUS Change of Authorization

Cisco SXP to simplify security and policy enforcement throughout the network

Threat defense features including Port Security, Dynamic ARP Inspection, and IP Source Guard

*6 First-Hop Security to protect against rogue router advertisements, spoofing, and other risks introduced by *6

For more information about Cisco security solutions, visit

Enhanced Quality of Service

The Cisco 2960-S Series Switches offers intelligent traffic management that keeps everything flowing smoothly. Flexible mechanisms for marking, classification, and scheduling deliver superior performance for data, voice, and video traffic, all at wire speed. Primary QoS features include:

Four egress queues per port and strict priority queuing so that the highest priority packets are serviced ahead of all other traffic

Shaped Round Robin (SRR) scheduling and Weighted Tail Drop (WTD) congestion avoidance

Flow-based rate limiting and up to 64 aggregate or individual rs per port

802.1p class of service (CoS) and differentiated services code point (DSCP) field classification, with marking and reclassification on a per-packet basis by source and destination IP address, MAC address, or Layer 4 TCP/UDP port number

Cross-stack QoS to allow QoS to be configured across a stack of 2960-S switches

Note that each switch model is tied to a specific feature level; LAN Lite models cannot be upgraded to the LAN Base feature set.

For more information about the features included in the LAN Base and LAN Lite feature sets, refer to Cisco Feature Navigator:

Technical Specifications