Cisco Catalyst

Catalyst is the brand for a variety of network switches sold by Cisco Systems. While commonly associated with Ethernet switches, a number of different network interfaces have been available throughout the history of the brand. Cisco acquired several different companies and rebranded their products as different versions of the Catalyst product line. The original Catalyst 5000 and 6000 series were based on technology acquired from Crescendo Communications. The 1700, 1900, and 2800 series Catalysts came from Grand Junction Networks, and the Catalyst 3000 series came from Kalpana in 1994.

In most cases, the technology for the Catalyst Switch was developed separately from Cisco′s router technology. The Catalyst switches originally ran software called CatOS rather than the more widely known Cisco IOS software used by routers. However, this has changed as the product lines have merged closer together. In some cases, particularly in the modular chassis switches, a configuration called 'Hybrid' has emerged - this is where the layer 2 functions are configured using CatOS, and the layer 3 elements are configured using IOS. 'Native IOS' can also be found with newer software versions that have eliminated CatOS entirely in favor of IOS, even on hardware that originally required CatOS.

The latest version of IOS for the Catalyst 6500 series is 12.2(33)SXJ which enables In-Service Software Upgrade (ISSU) via IOS Software Modularity and 15.1.1-SY.

Some newer Catalyst switch models (with recent versions of the Cisco IOS) also allow configuration via web-based graphical interface (GUI) module which is hosted on a server located on the switch. The IOS config-mode command 'ip http-server' will enable this style of configuration. In series 12.x IOS, 'ip http-server' is always on as a factory default. The Catalyst 3750-series of switches is an example of a Cisco Catalyst switch that allows this style of GUI configuration via HTTP.

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