Supervisor Engine is a module that is installed in the used network hardware Chassis-based Catalyst Switches or Routers. Supervisor engine contains nearly all the same components of a fixed Cisco Switches or Routers. These Supervisor engines come in a variety of different types with different functionalities and are installed in the Switches/Router Chassis as per requirements of the network types.
Benefits of Supervisor Engines
• By installing Latest Supervisor Engines in your existing investments (Switches and Routers) you can scale system performance and integrate next-generation services into your Networks.
• Within a single multilayer switch chassis, two supervisor modules with integrated route processors can be used to provide hardware redundancy. If an entire supervisor module fails, the other module can pick up the pieces and continue operating the switch
The supervisor engine contains the following integrated daughter cards that perform forwarding and routing and provide the cisco used equipment protocols supported on the router.
Policy Feature Card (PFC) is the forwarding plane and does the following:
• Performs Layer 2 and Layer 3 forwarding.
• Enforces access control list (ACL) functions.
• Performs policing and marking for quality of service (QoS) traffic.
Multilayer Switch Feature Card (MSFC) is the control plane and does the following:
• Performs routing for the chassis. The MSFC contains the route processor (RP) and Switch processor (SP) for the router.
• Runs Layer 2 and Layer 3 protocols, such as the Spanning Tree Protocol (STP) and others.
You can View a 3D model of Catalyst 6500 Switch, here you can see how the Catalyst Switch 6500 looks like, Mount/Demount Supervisor engines, and other inserted modules, view short details of them by demounting from Chassis.
The Cisco Supervisor Engine is the heart of many of cisco used equipment switches. The Supervisor Engine has evolved several times. While it is the management segment of many routers, the power of the switch is often much greater than that of the Supervisor Engine because one of the features of many switches is that dozens of the functions are accelerated by ASIC chips.
Abridged list of features:
802.1q VLAN
Spanning Tree Protocol
Ether Channel
Jumbo Frames
(E)IGRP, OSPF, RIP (2), Static Routing
BGP, IS-IS
QOS
Some have Layer 3 & 4 Switching
Specifications of Supervisor Engine
Supervisor Engine Mpps[1]
Switching Layer Bandwidth[2]
CPU Frequency Max Ram Max Flash OS Minimum IOS
1 15 2 1.2-32 25 MHz Motorola 68k 128MB 16MB CatOS N/A
2 30 2 18 150 MHz Mips R4700 128MB 16MB CatOS N/A
2+ 48 4 64 266 MHz R4700 256MB 32MB CatOS/IOS
3 15 4 ? 150-300 MHz 256MB ? IOS 12.1(8a)
4 48 4 64 333 MHz 512MB 64MB IOS 12.1(12c)
5 136 4 102 400-800 MHz 512MB ? IOS 12.2(18)
6 250 4 320 1.3 GHz 1GB ? IOS 12.2(40)
720 5 720 400/200 (MHz?) 1GB 64MB CatOS/IOS
32 5 IOS
Supervisor Engine I
68EC040
Chassis: 2900, 2948G, 2980G, 4000, 4500, 5000, 5500, 6000, 6500, 7600
Supervisor Engine II
MIPS R4700
Chassis: 2926, 4000, 4500, 5000, 5500, 6000, 6500, 7600
Supervisor Engine II+
MIPS R4700
Cisco Express Forwarding
Chassis: 2926, 4000, 4500, 5000, 5500, 6000, 6500, 7600
Supervisor Engine III
Cisco Express Forwarding
Max DRAM: 256MB SD
Redundant Capable
Netflow accelerator card
Supervisor Engine IV
Cisco Express Forwarding
Max Flash: 64MB (supplemental Compact Flash optional) Supervisor Engine V
Cisco Express Forwarding
Chassis: 4500
Supervisor Engine 6
Cisco Express Forwarding
Chassis: 4500 "E" Series
Supervisor Engine 32
Cisco Express Forwarding
Chassis: 6000, 6500
A low cost, reduced version of the 720
Policy Feature Card 3b
MSFC 2A?
Supervisor Engine 720
Cisco product Express Forwarding
Policy Feature Card 3A, 3B, 3BXL
Chassis: 6500, 7600
MSFC1-3
Multi-Layer Switch Feature Card
