Cisco Catalyst WS-C4506 Full English Product Description
1. Short Sales Title
Cisco WS-C4506 Classic 6-Slot Modular Campus Switch Chassis, 10RU Rack Height, Single Dedicated Supervisor Slot + 5 Hot-Swappable Line Card Slots, Dual Redundant Hot-Swap Power Supply Bays, Integrated Hot-Swap Fan Tray, Fixed 6 Gbps Per-Slot Backplane Bandwidth, Supports Legacy Supervisor II/IV/V Series Engines & Classic Catalyst 4500 Line Cards, Wire-Speed Layer 2–Layer 4 Switching, IEEE 802.3af/at PoE Compatible, End-of-Sale Enterprise Building Aggregation, Medium Branch Core & Small Data Center Leaf Chassis for Wiring Closet High-Density Access Deployments
2. Official Product Overview
The Cisco Catalyst WS-C4506 is a classic non-E enhanced 6-slot modular chassis within the Catalyst 4500 mid-range campus switch platform, fully End-of-Sale (EoS) and End-of-Support per Cisco lifecycle policy. It ships as a bare chassis with factory pre-installed fan tray only; supervisor engines, power supplies, and line cards are sold separately as standalone field-replaceable unitsCisco.
Built on a centralized shared-memory non-blocking switching fabric, WS-C4506 targets medium enterprise building distribution aggregation, regional branch core networks, large wiring closet high-density PoE access, and compact small data center leaf deployments. It delivers wire-speed Layer 2 switching, hardware-accelerated Layer 3 IP routing, granular enterprise QoS, comprehensive security, and native PoE power delivery for IP phones, Wave 2 Wi-Fi APs, and IP surveillance cameras.
Key differentiation from upgraded WS-C4506-E: The classic WS-C4506 uses a fixed 6 Gbps full-duplex bandwidth per line card slot without CenterFlex ASIC, cannot support E-series high-speed 24/48 Gbps line cards or modern 6-E/7-E/8-E supervisor engines, and only maintains full backward compatibility with legacy classic Catalyst 4500 supervisors and standard 6 Gbps copper/fiber PoE line cardsCisco.
Model Suffix Breakdown
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WS-C: Cisco Catalyst LAN Switch Platform Identifier
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4506: Catalyst 4500 Series, 6 total modular slot classic non-enhanced chassis
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No suffix: Standard bare chassis with fan tray included; power supplies, supervisor, and line cards not bundled
Chassis Slot Layout Definition
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Slot 1: Fixed dedicated supervisor engine slot (single supervisor only; redundant supervisor, SSO, NSF, ISSU are unsupported)
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Slot 2 – Slot 6: Five hot-swappable line card expansion slots for Gigabit copper, SFP fiber, PoE/PoE+ access modules
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Rear compartment: Dual independent hot-swappable power supply bays supporting 1+1 N+1 power redundancy
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Front lower bay: Single integrated hot-swappable cooling fan trayCisco
Supported Supervisor Engines
WS-C4506 classic chassis only supports legacy classic supervisors (E-series supervisors 6-E/7-E/8-E are incompatible):
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Supervisor Engine II, II-Plus, II-Plus-10GE
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Supervisor Engine IV (WS-X4515)
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Supervisor Engine V, V-10GE
All classic supervisors run Cisco IOS 12.2EW train native images with full Layer 2 switching and optional Layer 3 routing feature setsCisco.
Supported Line Card Modules
All standard classic Catalyst 4500 6 Gbps slot hot-swappable line cards are compatible:
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24/48-port 10/100/1000BASE-T copper non-PoE / IEEE 802.3af PoE / 802.3at PoE+ modules
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SFP-based Gigabit fiber uplink line cards
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10GE uplink expansion line cards
Total PoE power capacity varies by installed AC/DC PoE-capable power supply modules (1300W / 2800W ACV PSUs).
3. Hardware & Physical Specifications
Core Backplane & Switching Fabric
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Total modular slots: 6 (1 dedicated supervisor slot, 5 line card slots)
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Per-line-card slot bandwidth: Fixed 6 Gbps full-duplex hard-limited backplane (no scalable 24/48 Gbps support)
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Switching architecture: Centralized non-blocking shared-memory fabric managed via supervisor ASIC
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Maximum port density: Up to 240×1G copper ports with five 48-port line cards; up to 60×1G SFP fiber ports
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MAC address table capacity: Up to 16,384 MAC address entries (varies by installed supervisor model)
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TCAM capacity: Up to 64,000 ACL/QoS security flow entries
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Jumbo frame support: Up to 9198 bytes on all copper and fiber interfaces
Power System
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Power supply bays: 2 hot-swappable redundant slots (1+1 power failover supported)
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Supported PSU models: AC 1000W data-only, AC 1300W/2800W PoE-capable ACV, DC 1400W telecom PSU
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Input voltage range: AC 100–240V 50/60Hz; DC –48V standard telecom power
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Maximum total PoE budget: Up to 1440W with dual 2800WACV PoE power supplies
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Hot-swap capability: Power supplies can be live replaced without chassis full shutdown
Cooling System
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Fan tray: Single integrated hot-swappable fan assembly factory pre-installed with chassis
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Airflow direction: Right-to-left internal module airflow; front-to-back power supply airflow
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Status monitoring: Real-time fan speed, temperature, and fault alarms via console logs, SNMP, and front-panel LED indicators
Physical & Environmental Parameters
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Rack form factor: 10 RU standard 19-inch rack mount; optional 23-inch rack mounting brackets included
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Dimensions (H × W × D): 44.45 cm × 43.97 cm × 31.70 cm (17.5 × 17.31 × 12.50 inches)
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Weight: 18.37 kg (40.5 lbs) bare chassis with fan tray; maximum fully loaded weight 45 kg (99 lbs) with dual PSUs and full line card slots populatedCisco
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Operating temperature: 0°C to 40°C (32°F–104°F); altitude range -60m up to 3000m
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Storage temperature: -40°C to 75°C (-40°F–167°F)
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Relative humidity: 10%–90% non-condensing
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Compliance Certifications: FCC Class A, UL 60950, CE, VCCI Class A, NEBS Level 3, RoHS compliant
Supervisor Out-of-Band Management Interfaces
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RJ45 RS232 serial console port
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Optional mini USB console port on late-model Supervisor V-10GE
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Dedicated out-of-band 10/100BASE-T Ethernet management port
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Dual uplink slots (GBIC / SFP / XFP for 1G / 10GE based on supervisor variant)
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Front LED bank: System, fan, power, module, uplink, fault, UID beacon status indicators
4. Full Layer 2 & Layer 3 IOS Feature Set
Layer 2 Switching Features
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IEEE 802.1D STP, 802.1w Rapid STP, 802.1s MSTP
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Maximum 4096 VLANs, 802.1Q trunking + ISL proprietary trunk encapsulation
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Private VLAN, Q-in-Q VLAN stacking for multi-tenant segmentation
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Port security, static/dynamic MAC address learning, MAC filtering
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802.3ad LACP static EtherChannel link aggregation (max 8 ports per bundle)
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Broadcast/multicast/unicast storm suppression
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IGMPv1/v2/v3 snooping, CGMP for VoIP and IPTV multicast optimization
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Voice VLAN auto-detection for Cisco IP phones
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802.3x full-duplex flow control
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SPAN local port mirroring, RSPAN remote traffic analysis
Layer 3 Routing & Multicast Features (IP Base / IP Services IOS Images)
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Static IP routing, RIP v1/v2, EIGRP, OSPF v2; limited IPv6 support on Supervisor V
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Wire-speed SVI inter-VLAN routing
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PIM-SM / PIM-DM multicast routing, MSDP
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ECMP equal-cost multi-path load balancing
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Policy-Based Routing (PBR) available with IP Services license
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No VRF-Lite support on classic II/IV supervisors (only Supervisor V supports basic VRF)
QoS & Traffic Prioritization
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Hierarchical MQC modular QoS policy framework
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8 hardware priority queues per physical port, 802.1p CoS / DSCP bidirectional mapping
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Ingress policing, egress shaping, traffic marking and remarking
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Auto-QoS pre-built templates optimized for VoIP, video conferencing, IP surveillance
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Dedicated expedite voice queue for PoE IP phone traffic
Enterprise Security Suite
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IEEE 802.1X port-based NAC authentication with RADIUS/TACACS+ AAA integration
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DHCP Snooping, Dynamic ARP Inspection (DAI), IP Source Guard
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Port ACL, VLAN ACL (VACL), route ACL hardware traffic filtering
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SSHv2 encrypted CLI management, SNMPv3 secure monitoring
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Control Plane Policing (CoPP) to protect supervisor CPU from DDoS attacks
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Rogue AP detection, private VLAN host isolation
PoE Power Management
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IEEE 802.3af PoE (15.4W per port) / 802.3at PoE+ (30W per port) line card compatibility
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Per-port power priority scheduling for critical voice, wireless, and surveillance endpoints
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Real-time power budget monitoring, automatic power throttling for over-subscription protection
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Cisco EnergyWise power-saving management for idle PoE devices
5. High Availability Capabilities
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Dual hot-swappable redundant AC/DC power supplies (1+1 power failover)
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Hot-swappable fan tray, line cards, and power supplies (OIR Online Insertion and Removal; live module replacement without chassis shutdown)
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All interface modules support zero-service-interruption hot-swap
Critical Limitation: Single fixed supervisor slot design; redundant supervisor, SSO stateful switchover, NSF nonstop forwarding, and ISSU in-service software upgrades are not supported (reserved for R-series redundant chassis WS-C4507R / WS-C4510R)Cisco.
6. Typical Deployment Scenarios
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Medium Enterprise Building Distribution Aggregation
The 5 line card slots support high-density PoE access lines for multiple office floors; supervisor 1G/10G fiber uplinks connect to campus core routers, consolidating voice, data, and video traffic for entire building blocks.
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Regional Medium Branch Office Core Switch
Acts as standalone multi-VLAN core for large remote branch networks, combining inter-VLAN Layer 3 routing, full PoE power delivery, and fiber WAN uplink aggregation without oversized 10-slot chassis footprint.
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Large K-12 / Hospital Campus Wiring Closet
High port density accommodates classroom IP phones, medical thin clients, and dense Wi-Fi AP deployments; multicast support delivers campus-wide IPTV and unified communications.
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SMB Mini Data Center Leaf Switch
Fiber line cards connect server racks and storage arrays; wire-speed Layer 3 forwarding enables compact leaf-spine architecture for small enterprise data centers.
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Legacy Catalyst 4500 Infrastructure Refresh
Drop-in replacement for aging WS-C4000 and smaller WS-C4503 classic chassis, fully compatible with existing classic PoE line cards and legacy supervisors to extend hardware lifecycle with minimal upgrade investment.
7. Standard Package Contents
1 × WS-C4506 Classic 6-slot empty chassis
1 × Pre-installed integrated hot-swappable fan tray
19-inch standard rack mount rail kit; optional 23-inch rack mounting hardware
Hardware installation guide, global safety & compliance documentation
Items Sold Separately (Not Included)
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Classic Supervisor Engine (II / IV / V series variants)
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AC / DC redundant power supply units (PoE or data-only models)
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Classic 6 Gbps Gigabit copper/fiber PoE/PoE+ line cards
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GBIC / SFP / XFP optical transceivers for supervisor uplink ports
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Console cable, cable management accessories
Short Commercial Catalog Version (For Quotation & Datasheet Use)
The Cisco Catalyst WS-C4506 is an End-of-Sale classic 10RU 6-slot modular campus switch chassis from the Catalyst 4500 non-E Series, supplied bare with factory pre-installed fan tray (power supplies, classic supervisor, and line cards sold separately). It features 1 dedicated single supervisor slot, 5 hot-swappable fixed 6 Gbps backplane line card slots, dual hot-swappable redundant power supply bays, and centralized wire-speed Layer 2–Layer 4 switching architecture. Compatible with legacy Catalyst 4500 classic supervisor engines and standard PoE/PoE+ Gigabit copper/fiber line cards, supporting full Cisco IOS Layer 3 routing, advanced MQC QoS, enterprise security suite, IGMP multicast snooping, and 802.1X NAC. Optimized for medium building aggregation, large wiring closet high-density PoE access, and small branch core deployments, with 1+1 redundant power high availability and full OIR hot-swap module replacement; note no redundant supervisor failover capability on this non-R series chassis. Compliant with global industrial safety, EMI, and RoHS standards, covered by Cisco limited hardware warranty during active support lifecycle.
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