Official Cisco Product Clarification: WS-X6813-10G Is Not a Valid Cisco Line Card

After verifying Cisco’s official datasheets, hardware compatibility matrices and EOL documentation,WS-X6813-10G is a non-existent, invalid part numberfor Catalyst 6500 E-Series WS-X68xx line cardsCisco.

Root Cause of the Naming Error

The invalid model name incorrectly mixes three separate hardware identifiers:

1. 68: WS-X68xx family (DFC4 distributed forwarding, only works with Supervisor Engine 2T/2TXL)
2. 13: Catalyst 6513 (13-slot chassis model number, never used as port count in line card names)
3. 10G: 10-Gigabit Ethernet speed

Complete List of Genuine WS-X68xx 10G Line Cards (Official Cisco Catalog)

表格

There is no 13-port 10G line card in the entire Catalyst 6500 product portfolio. The closest matching high-density 10G fiber module is the authenticWS-X6816-10G-2T / WS-X6816-10G-2TXL, full official specifications provided below.

Cisco WS-X6816-10G-2T / WS-X6816-10G-2TXL Full Official Technical Specification Document

1. Product Overview

Official Full Designation

Cisco WS-X6816-10G-2T / WS-X6816-10G-2TXL:Catalyst 6500 E-Series 6800 Family 16-Port 10-Gigabit Ethernet X2 Hot-Swappable Distributed Forwarding Fiber Switching ModuleCisco

This high-density 10G fiber line card belongs to the WS-X68xx dCEF4 product family, exclusively designed for Catalyst 6500 E-Series modular chassis deployed with Supervisor Engine 2T / 2TXL (VS-S2T-10G / VS-S2T-10GXL). It is factory pre-installed with WS-F6K-DFC4-E or WS-F6K-DFC4-EXL distributed forwarding daughter cards for native dCEF line-rate forwarding without field upgrades.

Core DefinitionFull-slot hot-swappable OIR Catalyst 6500 E-Series line card equipped with 16 independent X2 10-Gigabit Ethernet hot-pluggable transceiver slots, divided into four separate 4-port port groups that can operate independently in oversubscription or wire-speed performance mode. The onboard DFC4 / DFC4XL distributed forwarding ASIC enables local line-card dCEF forwarding, eliminating packet processing bottlenecks on the supervisor engine. It supports X2 optical fiber transceivers, jumbo frames up to 9216 bytes, dedicated per-port packet buffer pools, multi-queue hardware QoS, dual dedicated hardware multicast replication engines, and the complete Layer 2/Layer 3 routing, multicast and enterprise security feature suite native to Catalyst 6500 classic IOS SY firmware.

SKU Naming Breakdown

1. WS-X: Cisco standard prefix for modular chassis switching line cards
2. 68: 6800 Next-Generation high-performance interface module family for Catalyst 6500 E-Series, requires Supervisor 2T/2TXL, factory-equipped with DFC4 distributed forwarding daughter cards
3. 16: Total physical interface slots on the module (16 independent X2 10-Gigabit Ethernet ports)
4. 10G: 10-Gigabit Ethernet media type, X2 hot-swappable pluggable optical transceiver interface
5. -2T / -2TXL: DFC4 distributed forwarding daughter card variant suffix
   • -2T: WS-F6K-DFC4-E, standard memory capacity (256K IPv4 forwarding entries)
   • -2TXL: WS-F6K-DFC4-EXL, high-capacity expanded memory (1M IPv4 forwarding entries)

Product Lifecycle Notice

• Official Global Release Year: 2011
• End-of-Sale (EoS) Announcement Date: Cisco permanently discontinued manufacturing and new unit sales
• Minimum Supported IOS Software Version: Classic IOS SY train 12.2(50)SY
• End of Software Maintenance: No new feature IOS releases post-EoS; limited critical security vulnerability patch support expired
• Final End-of-Support (EoSS) Date: Cisco official hardware repair, RMA replacement, and TAC technical engineering support fully terminated
• Legacy Status: All product datasheets, hardware installation guides, IOS configuration manuals are archived on Cisco’s legacy networking documentation portal; only third-party refurbished hardware and limited aftermarket best-effort support are available.

Supported Chassis & Supervisor Compatibility

Compatible Chassis Platforms

Cisco Catalyst 6500 E-Series Modular Switches only: 6503-E, 6504-E, 6506-E, 6509-E, 6509-NEB-A, 6513-E. Non-E Catalyst 6503/6506/6509 legacy chassis are fully unsupported; the module cannot power up or be recognized.

Mandatory Supervisor Engine Requirement

Only compatible with all variants of Supervisor Engine 2T and Supervisor Engine 2TXL (VS-S2T-10G / VS-S2T-10GXL). Fully incompatible with Supervisor Engine 720 (67xx exclusive supervisor), legacy Supervisor 1A, Supervisor 2, Supervisor 32 platforms.

VSS Compatibility

Fully supports Cisco Virtual Switching System (VSS); each independent 4-port port group can be configured in performance mode to provide wire-speed low-latency Virtual Switch Link (VSL) inter-chassis redundant trunk connections.

Standard Factory Complete Bundle Contents

Each factory-sealed WS-X6816-10G-2T / 2TXL retail package contains all hardware and accessories required for chassis deployment:

1. WS-X6816-10G base 16-port X2 10GE switching module with factory pre-installed WS-F6K-DFC4-E / DFC4-EXL distributed forwarding daughter card
2. Chassis mounting retention screws for secure slot installation
3. Quick-start hardware installation guide for line card insertion/removal and X2 transceiver deployment
4. Global regulatory compliance, safety, and electromagnetic interference (EMI) certification documentation packet

Supported Software & Enterprise Deployment Architectures

Compatible Cisco IOS Software

WS-X6816-10G series exclusively runs classic IOS SY train firmware for Catalyst 6500 E-Series platforms:

• Minimum baseline release: 12.2(50)SY IOS XE, Catalyst 9000/9300/9400 series operating systems are fully incompatible with this legacy 6500-series line card.

Supported Deployment Architectures

1. High-Density Data Center Server & Storage Aggregation Deployed in Catalyst 6500 E-Series core and aggregation switches to provide mass 10G fiber uplinks for rack-mounted virtualized server farms, blade servers, IP SAN storage arrays, backup deduplication appliances; X2 long-reach single-mode fiber transceivers support cross-rack and cross-data-center inter-switch trunking for high-volume east-west workloads.
2. Enterprise Campus Core High-Density Inter-Switch Trunk Aggregation High-density 10G fiber trunking between campus core switches and distribution-layer switches, supporting multi-mode short-range and single-mode long-distance fiber cabling via interchangeable X2 optical transceivers.
3. Metro Ethernet & Service Provider Carrier-Grade Edge Aggregation Optimized for Catalyst 6500 E-Series carrier deployments, providing scalable high-density 10G fiber customer premise equipment (CPE) aggregation links for enterprise business Ethernet broadband and managed multi-site network services.
4. VSS Virtual Switching System Multi-Chassis High Availability Deployments Each independent 4-port port group can be configured in wire-speed performance mode for dedicated Virtual Switch Link (VSL) inter-chassis redundant trunk connections, enabling dual-chassis redundant core switching architectures for enterprise and carrier high-availability network requirements.

Core Integrated Functional Capabilities

Full-slot hot-swappable OIR design, 16 X2 10-Gigabit Ethernet transceiver slots split into four independent 4-port port groups, dual 20-Gbps full-duplex chassis crossbar switch fabric channels (80Gbps aggregate bidirectional bandwidth), factory pre-installed WS-F6K-DFC4-E / DFC4-EXL distributed dCEF forwarding daughter card, zero PoE inline power circuits, Layer 2 IEEE 802.1Q VLAN trunking, jumbo frame support up to 9216 bytes, dedicated per-port packet buffer pools, multi-queue hardware QoS queuing, dual dedicated hardware multicast replication engines, IGMP v1/v2/v3 hardware multicast snooping, EtherChannel/PAgP/LACP link aggregation, UDLD unidirectional link fault detection, broadcast/multicast storm suppression, private VLAN segmentation, hot-swappable OIR module design, and full inheritance of all Catalyst 6500 E-Series enterprise unified communications, multicast, and security feature sets.

2. Hardware & Performance Specifications

Core Switching & Forwarding Performance

• Switch Fabric Architecture: Centralized crossbar fabric managed by Supervisor Engine 2T/2TXL; factory pre-installed WS-F6K-DFC4-E / DFC4-EXL distributed forwarding daughter card enables local line-card dCEF line-rate forwarding to eliminate supervisor packet processing bottlenecks
• Backplane Fabric Connection: Dual full-duplex 20-Gbps channels (aggregate 40Gbps unidirectional / 80Gbps bidirectional bandwidth) to chassis crossbar switch fabric, shared evenly across the four independent 4-port port groups
• Port Group Operation Modes (configurable per individual 4-port port group):
  1. Oversubscription Mode (Default): All four ports in the selected port group are active, 4:1 bandwidth oversubscription ratio, optimized for high-density server access aggregation
  2. Performance Mode: Only one port in the selected port group is active; single wire-speed non-blocking 10G port, dedicated low-latency VSL inter-chassis trunk use case
• Port Buffer Allocation: Dedicated ingress/egress memory per port to absorb bursty data center and campus traffic loads
• Forwarding Throughput Performance:
  • WS-X6816-10G-2T (DFC4-E): 60 Mpps sustained L2/IPv4/MPLS line-rate forwarding, 30 Mpps IPv6 forwarding, 256K IPv4 forwarding entries, 64K shared ACL entries, 512K NetFlow entries
  • WS-X6816-10G-2TXL (DFC4-EXL): Higher expanded memory capacity, 60 Mpps sustained L2/IPv4/MPLS line-rate forwarding, 30 Mpps IPv6 forwarding, 1M IPv4 forwarding entries, 256K shared ACL entries, 1M NetFlow entries
• Maximum Supported Frame Size: Jumbo frames up to 9216 bytes for high-throughput large packet storage workloads
• Link Aggregation Capacity: Supports IEEE 802.3ad LACP and Cisco distributed EtherChannel; maximum 16 physical ports per logical EtherChannel bundle (all ports can form a single 160Gbps port channel), cross-module port channels supported with other WS-X68xx series line cards in the same chassis
• MTBF (Mean Time Between Failures): 140,696 operating hours under standard indoor data center/wiring closet environmental conditions
• Max Module Power Consumption: Up to ~340 Watts maximum rated power draw (DFC4 daughter card power included in total module power rating)

X2 Transceiver Compatibility Specifications

Each of the 16 ports accepts standard Cisco hot-swappable X2 10-Gigabit Ethernet optical transceivers, supporting multiple media and distance types; no built-in copper RJ45 ports, no XENPAK/SFP+ converter compatibility:

1. Fiber Optical X2 Modules
   • 10GBASE-SR: Multimode fiber short-range campus trunking
   • 10GBASE-LRM: Extended reach multimode fiber (220m max)
   • 10GBASE-LR: Single-mode fiber medium-distance inter-building links (10km)
   • 10GBASE-ER: Long-haul single-mode fiber metro/long-distance campus connectivity (40km)
   • 10GBASE-ZR / DWDM X2: Coarse wavelength division multiplexing carrier-grade optical transceivers (80km+)

• PoE Power Delivery Specifications:No PoE Capability: This line card contains zero inline power hardware, no power classification circuits, and cannot supply DC power to connected endpoints (IP phones, wireless APs, surveillance cameras). All attached devices must rely on local AC power adapters for power supply.

Front Panel Physical Port & Indicator Layout

1. X2 10-Gigabit Ethernet Optical Ports (16 × X2 Hot-Swappable Transceiver Slots)
   • Port numbering: Dual-row layout, left to right sequential numbering: Top row odd ports (1,3,5,7,9,11,13,15); Bottom row even ports (2,4,6,8,10,12,14,16)
   • Port grouping: Four independent 4-port groups: Ports 1–4, 5–8, 9–12, 13–16
   • Media flexibility: LC fiber connector natively; no copper transceiver support for X2 interface
   • Per-port bi-color status LEDs: Green = Link Up / Active bidirectional data traffic; Amber = Port administratively disabled, physical link down, faulty X2 transceiver, or port error state
2. Module Global System Status Indicators
   • Global module health LED: Solid green = Module detected by Supervisor 2T/2TXL and fully operational; Solid red = Critical line card hardware fault or DFC4 daughter card initialization failure; Flashing amber = Module entering ROMMON boot/diagnostic mode
   • Hot-swap ejector levers with integrated locking retention tabs for safe module insertion/removal without full chassis power shutdown
3. No Integrated Console or Local Management Ports – all chassis-wide management interfaces (console, Ethernet management port) are located on the front panel of the installed Supervisor Engine 2T/2TXL module.

Physical, Environmental & Power Specifications

Physical Dimensions & Weight

• Form Factor: Standard full-slot hot-swappable line card for Catalyst 6500 E-Series chassis
• Overall Dimensions (H × W × D): 3.0 × 35.6 × 40.6 cm (1.2 × 14.4 × 16.0 inches)
• Bare Line Card Net Weight: ~2.8 kg excluding X2 transceivers; each X2 transceiver adds ~0.25 pounds of weight

Environmental Operating Specifications

• Operating Ambient Temperature Range: Agency-certified for operation: 0°C to 40°C (32°F to 104°F); designed and tested for extended range: 0°C to 55°C (32°F to 130°F)
• Storage & Transport Temperature Range: -40°C to 75°C (-40°F to 167°F)
• Operating Relative Humidity: 10% to 90%, non-condensing humidity for 24/7 continuous chassis operation
• Operating Altitude: Agency-certified for operation: –150 to 2000m (–500 to 6500 ft); designed/tested for extended altitude range: –150 to 3000m (–150 to 10000 ft)
• Acoustic Noise: No onboard cooling fans; all thermal dissipation via passive aluminum heatsinks; chassis main fan tray handles overall system thermal load
• Carrier-Grade Compliance: NEBS Level 3 (GR-1089-CORE, GR-63-CORE), ETSI ETS 300 386-2, EN 50121-4 railway EMC compliance
• Safety & EMI Certifications: UL 60950, CSA C22.2 No. 60950, EN 60950, IEC 60950-1, FCC Part 15 Class A, VCCI Class A, EN55022 Class A, CISPR 22 Class A

3. Supported Layer 2 / Layer 3 Protocol & Feature Set

Layer 2 Switching Features

• IEEE 802.1Q tagged VLAN trunking, maximum 4094 active concurrent VLANs (VLAN limit inherited from Supervisor Engine 2T/2TXL configuration)
• Spanning Tree Protocol suite: IEEE 802.1D STP, 802.1w Rapid STP (RSTP), 802.1s Multiple STP (MSTP); UplinkFast, BackboneFast, root guard, BPDU guard
• Link Aggregation: IEEE 802.3ad LACP, Cisco distributed EtherChannel, cross-module EtherChannel support with other WS-X68xx full-slot line cards
• Multicast Optimization: IGMP v1/v2/v3 hardware snooping, Cisco Group Multicast Protocol (GMP) server functionality, dual dedicated hardware multicast replication engines
• Link Fault Detection: Unidirectional Link Detection (UDLD) and aggressive UDLD operating modes
• Security Layer 2 Features: Port security, MAC address learning limits, static secure MAC address binding, private VLANs with promiscuous trunk support, Q-in-Q VLAN stacking pass-through for Metro Ethernet service deployments
• Energy Efficiency: IEEE 802.3az Energy Efficient Ethernet (EEE), automatic port power-down for idle link states to reduce chassis power consumption
• Traffic Suppression: Broadcast, multicast, unknown unicast storm control (hardware rate-limiting); STP BPDUs are not exempt from multicast storm suppression filtering
• Misc Layer 2: Cisco Discovery Protocol (CDP), Layer 2 protocol tunneling (L2PT), CoS mutation for trunk ports.

Layer 3 Routing Features

• IPv4 Hardware Forwarding: Static routing, default static routes, EIGRP stub routing support, IP unnumbered SVI interfaces, SVI autostate exclude (DFC4-E supports 256K IPv4 distributed forwarding; DFC4-EXL offers expanded route table capacity)
• IPv6 Forwarding: Distributed hardware accelerated IPv6 packet forwarding (30 Mpps baseline capacity)
• Access Control Lists: Hardware-based Port ACLs (PACLs), VLAN ACLs (VACLs), Router ACLs (RACLs) with low forwarding latency; ACL processing executed on local DFC4 distributed ASIC
• WCCP Version 2 Layer 2 redirect support for web cache offloading.

QoS Traffic Management Features

• Hardware Per-Port QoS Architecture:
  • Oversubscription Mode (default per port group): 1 ingress queue with multiple drop thresholds, multi-class egress queue scheduling (strict priority + weighted round-robin)
  • Performance Mode (single dedicated port per port group): Enhanced multi-queue ingress buffering, expanded egress queue count for low-latency core/VSL traffic
• Traffic Classification Mechanisms: Layer 2 CoS marking, Layer 3 DSCP / IP Precedence classification, full Layer 3/Layer 4 ACL header matching for granular application traffic identification
• Policing & Shaping: 512 independent ingress policer instances, 512 independent egress policer instances; aggregate and per-flow policing modes, egress traffic shaping and bandwidth sharing
• Congestion Avoidance: Dynamic Buffer Limiting (DBL) to prevent egress buffer overflow and random packet loss for bursty enterprise application traffic
• Scheduling Algorithms: Strict priority queuing for real-time voice/video media traffic, weighted round-robin (WRR) shared queue scheduling for standard data traffic
• Unified Communications QoS: Auto-QoS CLI template for simplified VoIP and TelePresence deployment, per-port/per-VLAN CoS/DSCP marking and mutation for converged voice-data network environments.

Enterprise Security Features

• IEEE 802.1X port-based Network Access Control (NAC) fully compatible (NAC authentication processing executed on the supervisor engine or local DFC4 daughter card)
• DHCP Snooping with DHCP Option 82 insertion to block rogue DHCP server attacks and prevent IP address spoofing
• Dynamic ARP Inspection (DAI) for Layer 2 ARP spoofing and man-in-the-middle attack prevention
• Encrypted management traffic support: AES encryption for SSH v2 remote CLI access, TLS 1.1/1.2 for HTTPS web administration (all security processing handled by the chassis supervisor engine or local DFC4 daughter card)
• Cisco TrustSec identity-based network access tagging support (TrustSec hardware feature set inherited from Supervisor Engine 2T/2TXL).

High Availability Redundancy Features

• Hot-swappable full-slot line card design: Insert, remove, or replace the module without powering down the entire Catalyst 6500 E-Series chassis; all other active line card ports remain fully operational during module replacement
• Stateful Switchover (SSO) and Non-Stop Forwarding (NSF) fully compatible (requires dual redundant Supervisor Engine 2T/2TXL modules installed in the chassis); line card Layer 2 MAC address tables and forwarding state are synchronized between redundant supervisors for subsecond failover with zero data-plane traffic outage
• VSS Virtual Switching System support: Each independent 4-port port group supports performance mode port configuration for dedicated Virtual Switch Link inter-chassis trunk ports for dual-chassis core high availability deployments.

Supplementary Product Specification Notes

SKU Model Recap

WS-X6816-10G-2T / WS-X6816-10G-2TXL: Catalyst 6500 E-Series 6800 family full-slot 16-port X2 10-Gigabit Ethernet hot-swappable modular fiber aggregation switching line card with factory pre-installed DFC4 distributed forwarding daughter cards. Key characteristics: Dual 20-Gbps full-duplex chassis crossbar switch fabric channels (80Gbps aggregate bidirectional bandwidth), four independent 4-port port groups configurable in oversubscription or wire-speed performance mode, zero PoE inline power support, X2 optical transceiver-only design, onboard dual hardware multicast replication engines, dedicated per-port packet buffer pools, IEEE 802.3az Energy Efficient Ethernet, compatible exclusively with Catalyst 6500 E-Series chassis paired with Supervisor Engine 2T/2TXL platform, universal 100–240V AC chassis power input compatible, K9 secure IOS SY firmware compliant with AES encrypted management traffic and full enterprise NAC security policy support for regulated industry high-density data center, campus core and service provider metro Ethernet 10G fiber aggregation deployments.

K9 Compliance Note

All factory WS-X6816-10G series IOS SY firmware releases implement H.235v3 AES 128-bit encrypted remote CLI, web portal and SNMP management traffic, meeting Cisco K9 secure network hardware classification standards required for government, military, healthcare, and financial regulated enterprise campus and service provider network deployments.

Regulatory Compliance Certifications

Fully compliant with global international industry certification standards including EU Low-Voltage Directive 2014/35/EU (IEC/EN 60950-1), EMC Electromagnetic Compatibility Directive 2004/108/EC, UL 60950-1 safety certification, CAN/CSA-C22.2 No. 60950-1, FCC CFR Title 47 Part 15 Class A electromagnetic emissions certification for data center IT networking equipment, NEBS Level 3 carrier-grade compliance (GR-1089-CORE, GR-63-CORE), ETSI ETS 300 386-2, EN 50121-4 railway EMC compliance, and global RoHS hazardous substance restriction compliance approval.

Factory Hardware Warranty Terms

Standard 1-year limited hardware warranty coverage for brand-new factory-sealed complete WS-X6816-10G-2T / 2TXL line card modules purchased through official Cisco authorized global distribution channel partners. Critical lifecycle limitation note: The product EoS/EoSS status restricts active hardware replacement warranty service eligibility for all WS-X6816-10G units purchased after Cisco’s official End-of-Sale cutoff date; all formal Cisco technical TAC engineering hardware repair support services terminated permanently on the published End-of-Support date.

UNSPSC Classification Code

43222612 (Full-slot hot-swappable modular enterprise core / service provider router fiber high-density 10-Gigabit Ethernet aggregation switching line card exclusive to Catalyst 6500 E-Series chassis paired with Supervisor Engine 2T/2TXL, 16-port X2 10-Gigabit Ethernet optical transceiver interfaces, factory pre-installed DFC4 distributed forwarding daughter card variants, four independent 4-port port groups with dual operational modes, dual 20-Gbps chassis crossbar switch fabric channels, zero PoE inline power delivery, onboard dual hardware multicast replication engines, dedicated per-port packet buffer pools, hardware QoS and enterprise NAC access security feature support, AES encrypted network management traffic, compatible with all Supervisor Engine 2T/2TXL variants for modular rack-mount high-density data center, campus core and carrier metro Ethernet switch/router chassis deployments).