Cisco Catalyst WS-C6503 Full English Product Description

1. Short Sales Title

2. Official Product Overview

1. Passive shared bus backplane limited to max 16 Gbps total system bandwidth, no 40/80 Gbps per-slot fabric capacity of E-series.
2. Restricted power delivery, maximum 950W dual AC power supplies only, cannot support high-power ePoE/10G dense line cards.
3. No native built-in switching fabric on chassis; early Supervisor 1A/2 only, limited compatibility with Supervisor 32/720 (no Supervisor 2T support).
4. Fixed horizontal compact 7RU form factor designed for limited rack space small core deployments, with unique flexible slot rules: Slots 1 and 2 can each hold either a supervisor engine or a line card module, Slot3 is dedicated for a single line card moduleCisco.

Model Suffix Breakdown

• WS-C: Cisco Catalyst LAN Switch Platform Identifier
• 6503: Catalyst 6500 modular series, total 3 horizontal slot classic non-enhanced chassis
• No suffix: Original non-E chassis with passive shared bus backplane, limited power and supervisor compatibility

Chassis Slot Layout Definition (Horizontal Slots 1–3)

1. Slot 1: Multi-purpose slot – Primary Supervisor Engine or line card/service module
2. Slot 2: Multi-purpose slot – Secondary redundant Supervisor Engine (for 1+1 HA) or second line card/service module
3. Slot 3: Fixed dedicated line card slot for Ethernet, PoE, FlexWAN, FWSM service modules
4. Rear Compartment: Two independent hot-swappable power supply bays supporting 1+1 N+1 power redundancy, max dual 950W AC PSUs onlyCisco
5. Front lower bay: Single integrated hot-swappable fan tray assembly

Supported Supervisor Engines (Restricted Compatibility)

1. Fully supported legacy classic supervisors: Supervisor Engine 1A (WS-X6K-S1A-MSFC2), Supervisor Engine 2 (WS-X6K-S2-PFC2 / WS-X6K-S2U-MSFC2) with MSFC2 multilayer routing and PFC2 policy feature cardCisco
2. Limited conditional support: Supervisor Engine 32, Supervisor Engine 720/720-10GE (requires minimum IOS 12.2SX software, no Supervisor 2T compatibility)
3. Redundancy rule: Dual supervisors must be identical model, matching MSFC/PFC daughter cards to enable SSO/NSF

Supported Line Card & Service Modules

1. Gigabit Ethernet copper modules: 24/48-port 10/100/1000BASE-T, IEEE 802.3af PoE capable line cards
2. Fiber uplink modules: GBIC/SFP Gigabit Ethernet, X2 10GE uplink modules
3. Service modules: FWSM Firewall Services Module, ACE Load Balancer, FlexWAN WAN aggregation (T1/E1/OC-3/OC-48 PoS), IPsec VPN SPA modules
4. Unsupported: High-power E-series ePoE line cards, SFM fabric modules (WS-C6500-SFM not functional on WS-C6503)Cisco

3. Hardware & Physical Specifications

Core Switching & Routing Performance

• Total chassis shared bus backplane capacity: Max 16 Gbps full-duplex non-blocking
• Wire-speed forwarding rate: Up to 15 Mpps Layer 2 bridging / IPv4 CEF routing (limited by passive bus architecture)
• Packet buffer memory: Shared dynamic buffer pool per supervisor generation
• MAC address table capacity: Up to 32,768 MAC entries (PFC2) / 131,072 MAC (PFC3BXL on Sup720)
• IPv4 routing table: Max 64,000 CEF routes (Sup2) / 256,000 (Sup720); basic software-only IPv6 forwarding (no full hardware IPv6 acceleration on Sup2)
• TCAM ACL/QoS entries: 64,000 (PFC2) / 128,000 (PFC3BXL)
• Maximum VLANs: 4094 standard 802.1Q tagged VLANs, ISL trunking supported
• SVI routed interfaces: Up to 4094 inter-VLAN routed SVIs
• Jumbo frame support: Up to 9198 bytes MTU
• Link aggregation: GEC Gigabit EtherChannel, 10GE EtherChannel (max 8 ports per logical bundle)

Power & Cooling System

• Power supply bays: 2 hot-swappable redundant slots, only compatible with 950W AC-input PSUs (no high-wattage 1400W/3000W PoE PSUs supported)
• AC input range: 100–240V 50/60Hz; DC-input 950W PSU optional
• Fan tray: Single integrated hot-swappable multi-fan variable-speed assembly, fixed airflow front-to-back
• Real-time monitoring: Fan failure, internal temperature, PSU voltage fault alerts via front panel LEDs, console syslog and SNMP traps

Physical & Environmental Parameters

• Rack form factor: 7 RU standard 19-inch horizontal rack mount
• Dimensions (H × W × D): 30.48 cm × 43.97 cm × 40.64 cm (12 × 17.31 × 16 inches)
• Bare chassis weight: 11.3 kg (25 lbs) without power supplies; fully loaded max weight 22.7 kg (50 lbs) with dual PSUs, dual supervisors and full line card slots populated
• Operating temperature: 0°C to 40°C (32°F–104°F); altitude up to 3000 meters
• Storage temperature: -40°C to 75°C (-40°F–167°F)
• Relative humidity: 10%–90% non-condensing
• Compliance Certifications: FCC Class A, UL 60950, CE, VCCI Class A, NEBS Level 3, RoHS compliant

Supervisor Out-of-Band Management Interfaces

• RJ45 RS232 serial console port
• Optional PCMCIA flash card slot for IOS image and config storage
• Dedicated out-of-band 10/100BASE-T Ethernet management port
• Dual uplink slots (GBIC/SFP/X2 for 1G/10GE uplinks based on supervisor model)
• Front panel LED bank: System, power, fan, module, port link/activity, fault, UID diagnostic indicators

4. Full Layer 2 & Layer 3 IOS Feature Set (Cisco IOS 12.1E / 12.2SX)

Layer 2 Switching Features

• IEEE 802.1D STP, 802.1w Rapid STP, 802.1s MSTP
• 802.1Q trunking + ISL proprietary trunk encapsulation, DTP dynamic trunk negotiation
• VTP v1/v2/v3 VLAN Trunking Protocol, Private VLAN, Q-in-Q VLAN stacking for multi-tenant segmentation
• Port security, static/dynamic secure MAC address learning, MAC filtering
• 802.3ad LACP EtherChannel link aggregation
• Broadcast/multicast/unicast storm suppression
• IGMPv1/v2/v3 snooping, CGMP for IPTV and video multicast optimization
• Voice VLAN auto-detection for Cisco IP phone aggregation
• Local SPAN, RSPAN remote traffic mirroring for monitoring
• 802.3x full-duplex flow control

Layer 3 Routing & Multicast Features

• Static IPv4 routing, RIP v1/v2, full multi-area OSPFv2, EIGRP, BGPv4 inter-domain routing
• Wire-speed hardware CEF SVI inter-VLAN routing (IPv4 only hardware on Sup2; Sup720 adds hardware IPv6)
• PIM-DM / PIM-SM / PIM-SSM multicast routing, MSDP support
• ECMP equal-cost multi-path load balancing across multiple uplinks
• Policy-Based Routing (PBR) available with IP Services license
• Multi-VRF Lite multi-tenant segmentation (Sup32/720 only)
• VSS Virtual Switching System support limited to Sup720 generation (no VSS on Sup2)

Advanced MQC QoS & Traffic Prioritization

• Hierarchical MQC modular QoS policy framework
• 8 hardware priority queues per physical port, bidirectional 802.1p CoS / DSCP mapping
• Ingress traffic policing, egress shaping, packet marking and remarking
• Pre-built Auto-QoS templates optimized for VoIP, video conferencing and IP surveillance
• Dedicated expedite voice priority queue for PoE IP phone traffic

Enterprise Security Suite

• IEEE 802.1X port-based NAC authentication with RADIUS/TACACS+ AAA identity integration
• DHCP Snooping, Dynamic ARP Inspection (DAI), IP Source Guard anti-spoofing protection
• Hardware-accelerated Port ACL, VLAN ACL (VACL), Route ACL traffic filtering
• SSHv2 encrypted CLI management, SNMPv3 secure monitoring, encrypted startup-config files
• Control Plane Policing (CoPP) to protect supervisor CPU from DDoS attacks
• Cisco TrustSec security group tagging (Sup720 only)
• FWSM integrated firewall service module support for inline security

Monitoring & Management

• NetFlow v9 traffic export (limited Flexible NetFlow on Sup720 only)
• Dedicated isolated out-of-band Ethernet management port for offline device access
• PCMCIA flash storage for IOS image upgrades and configuration backup
• Cisco Discovery Protocol (CDP) neighbor device discovery
• Cisco EnergyWise power efficiency monitoring for idle PoE port power reduction

5. High Availability Capabilities

1. Dual hot-swappable redundant 950W AC/DC power supplies (1+1 power failover protection)
2. Full OIR Online Insertion and Removal support for fan tray, power supplies, supervisors and line cards; live FRU replacement without chassis shutdown
3. Dual redundant supervisor capability (Slots1+2 identical Sup engines): SSO Stateful Switchover, NSF Nonstop Forwarding, ISSU In-Service Software Upgrade for zero-downtime core maintenance
4. Single variable-speed hot-swappable fan tray with individual fan fault detection and SNMP alerting
5. Limitation: Passive shared bus backplane creates single fabric failure point; no independent SFM fabric modules like larger 6506/6509 chassis

6. Typical Deployment Scenarios

1. Small Enterprise Campus Core Switch

   Compact 7RU horizontal form factor fits limited rack space; dual redundant supervisors eliminate single point of failure for small multi-building campus backbone, aggregating distribution switches via Gigabit fiber trunks and supporting campus-wide IPTV unified communications.
2. Low-Density Multi-Floor Building Distribution Aggregation

   Three-slot design supports mixed PoE copper access and fiber uplink line cards, consolidating voice, video and surveillance traffic for single building blocks without large 6/9-slot chassis footprint.
3. Small Regional Mission-Critical Branch Office Core

   Financial, healthcare and government remote branch networks require full supervisor + power redundancy to avoid costly site-wide outages, integrating FlexWAN WAN aggregation, FWSM firewall and high-density PoE Wi-Fi AP deployments.
4. Mini SMB Data Center Aggregation Switch

   Gigabit/10GE fiber line cards connect server racks and storage arrays; wire-speed Layer 3 forwarding enables compact leaf-spine architecture for small enterprise data centers with redundant supervisor failover.
5. Legacy Catalyst 6000 Series Hardware Replacement

   Drop-in upgrade for aging WS-C6003 chassis, fully compatible with legacy Sup2 supervisors and existing GBIC/SFP transceivers to extend legacy network hardware lifecycle.

7. Standard Package Contents

Items Sold Separately (Not Included)

• Supervisor Engine (1A / 2 / 32 / 720 variants; minimum two identical units for full redundancy)
• Dual 950W AC or DC hot-swappable redundant power supply units (higher wattage PSUs incompatible)
• Classic 6500 series copper/fiber PoE line cards, FWSM, FlexWAN service modules
• GBIC / SFP / XFP optical transceivers for supervisor uplink ports
• RS232 serial console rollover cable, PCMCIA flash memory cards, cable management accessories

Short Commercial Catalog Version (For Quotation & Datasheet Use)