WS-SUP720-3BXL Cisco-WS-SUP720-3BXL Switch

Cisco WS-SUP720-3BXL - Catalyst 6500 Supervisor Engine 720 with PFC3BXL

The Cisco WS-SUP720-3BXL is a high-performance supervisor engine for the Catalyst 6500 Series chassis switches, designed to deliver scalable, resilient, and secure services at the enterprise core and distribution layers. Equipped with the Policy Feature Card 3BXL (PFC3BXL), it provides advanced Layer 2/3/4 intelligence, hardware-based forwarding, and expanded routing table scalability for large-scale enterprise and service provider networks.

🔧 Key Specifications

• Platform: Cisco Catalyst 6500/7600 Series chassis (e.g., WS-C6509-E, WS-C6506-E)
• Processor: 1 GHz CPU with integrated forwarding engine
• Memory: 1 GB DRAM, 256 MB Flash (expandable)
• Switching Capacity: Up to 720 Gbps system throughput (with fabric-enabled chassis)
• Forwarding Rate: Up to 400 Mpps
• Policy Feature Card: PFC3BXL - supports advanced QoS, ACLs, NetFlow, MPLS, IPv6, and multicast
• Routing Table Capacity: Expanded IPv4/IPv6 routing entries compared to PFC3B (ideal for large-scale deployments)
• MSFC (Multilayer Switch Feature Card): Integrated MSFC3 for advanced Layer 3 routing
• Redundancy: Supports dual supervisor engines for high availability (active/standby failover)
• Security: Hardware-based ACLs, IPv6 security, TrustSec, and role-based access control
• Dimensions: Fits Catalyst 6500/7600 chassis supervisor slots
• Reliability: Hot-swappable, field-replaceable, redundant design

🧩 Ideal Use Cases

• Enterprise core and distribution layers requiring high-performance routing and switching
• Service provider and large-scale enterprise deployments needing expanded routing table capacity
• Data center environments requiring advanced QoS, MPLS, and IPv6 support
• Mission-critical networks requiring high availability and redundancy

⚙️ Licensing & Expansion
The WS-SUP720-3BXL runs Cisco IOS software with IP Services, enabling advanced routing protocols (OSPF, EIGRP, BGP, MPLS) and policy-based routing. Expansion is enabled through Catalyst 6500 line cards, allowing flexible configurations for Gigabit, 10G, and service modules.