High availability

This supervisor module operates in active and standby modes with stateful supervisor failover to enhance total system availability.

Resilient dedicated connectivity to each fabric and I/O module slot

Dual redundant Ethernet out-of-band channels to each module and fabric provide resilience for communication between the control plane and line-card processors.

Centralized arbiter

Active-active control of the flow of traffic through the switch fabric helps ensure transparent switchover with no losses.

Virtual output queuing

A quality-of-service (QoS)-aware lossless fabric avoids the problems associated with head-of-line blocking.

Embedded packet analyzer

An advanced integrated troubleshooting tool reduces the need for dedicated protocol analyzers and provides faster resolution of control-plane problems.

Front-panel LEDs

LEDs provide visible indication of the supervisor ID, active or standby status, power management, and activity on the compact flash drive.

Identification (ID) LED

Using the beacon feature, the administrator can clearly identify the chassis and supervisor module.

USB ports

Ports enable access to USB flash memory devices for software image loading and recovery.

CPU shares

CPU shares enable you to allocate specific amounts of the switch’s CPU to a specific VDC. This feature enables you to prioritize VDCs and help ensure that critical VDCs have access to the CPU, and it prevents lower-priority VDCs from negatively affecting higher-priority VDCs.