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Catalyst 3550 Multilayer Switch Software Configuration Guide
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Chapter1 Overview Management Options
Management Options
The Catalyst 3550 switch is designed for plug-and-play operation: you n ee d to conf ig ure o nly b asic IP
information for the switch and connect it to the other devices in your network. If you have specif ic
network needs, you can configure and monitor the switch—on an individual basis or as part of a switch
cluster—through its various management interfaces.

Management Interface Options

You can configure and monitor individual switches and switch clusters by using these interfaces:
•CMS—CMS is a graphical user interface that can be launched from anywhere in your network
through a web browser such as Netscape Communicator or Microsoft Internet Explorer. CMS is
already installed on the switch. Using CMS, you can configure and monitor a standalone switch, a
specific cluster member, or an entire switch cluster. You can also display network topologies to
gather link information and to display switch images to modify switch and port settings.
For more information about CMS, see Chapter3, “Getting Started with CMS.”
•CLI—The switch IOS CLI software is enhanced to support desktop- and multilayer-switching
features. You can configure and monitor the switch and switch cluster members from the CLI. You
can access the CLI either by connecting your management station directly to the switch console port
or by using Telnet from a remote management station.
For more information about the CLI, see Chapter2, “Using the Command-Line Interface.”
•Internet Control Message Protocol (ICMP) and ICMP Router Discovery Protocol (IRDP) for using ro uter advertisement
and router solicitation messages to discover the addresses o f rout ers on dir ect ly a ttac hed subn ets
•Protocol-Independent Multicast (PIM) for multicast routing with in t he n etw ork, allo win g f or devi ces in the ne two rk t o
receive the multicast feed requested and for switches not participating in the multicast to be pruned. Includes support for
PIM sparse mode (PIM-SM), PIM dense mode (PIM-DM), and PIM sparse-dense mode.
•Distance Vector Multicast Routing Protocol (DVMRP) tunnelling for interconnecting two multicast-enabled networks
across non-multicast networks
•DHCP relay for forwarding UDP broadcasts, including IP addres s re qu ests, f rom D HCP cli ent s
Monitoring
•Switch LEDs that provide port- and switch-level status
•Switch Port Analyzer (SPAN) for traffic monitoring on any port or VLAN
•Four groups (history, statistics, alarms, and events) of embedded remote monitoring (RMON) agents for networ k
monitoring and traffic analysis
•Syslog facility for logging system messages about authentication or authorization errors, resource issues, and time-out
events
•MAC address notification for tracking users on a network by storing the MAC addresses that the switch has learne d or
removed
Table1-1 Features (continued)