need info on supervisor engine module of cisco 5500

No. However, if I recall correctly, without it, the 5500 acts like a bunch of unconnected dumb switches (each card being a different switch.) You wouldn't be able to use any of the layer 3 features without the supervisor engine.

Ummm, that sounds suspiciously like a class assignment.

The 5500 has been End of Sale for several years, so if you are considering getting one now, my answer would be "Absolutely not without a supervisor engine and software being provided with it, and even then only at give-away prices."

no.......not at all.....

i have a cisco 5500 and cisco 6500....so .... can somebody explain how is one better than the other.

Hmm, one model has been discontinued years ago, its reached end-of-maintenance and no software upgrades are available, and its backplane supports 3.6Gbps (not counting local switching available on each line card), or up to 50Gbps with all the right forwarding cards.

The other is the current top-of-the-line, and still very current. It can deliver 720GBs on the backplane with the right sup and line cards, and supports hundreds more current modules.

Hmm.. I suppose its all relative to what you want to do with it.

thank you..... what are the new features present in 6500 that are not present in

5500 ? is it only the operational speed that is increased ? also can somebody tell me if 5500/6500 can terminate pppoe/pppoa sessions ie., authenticate users.

Enter your platform, choose your software revision, choose your feature set, and see what features are present.

I've been following this thread. How interesting. Short answer: you need a supervisor, preferably a sup III. It is like the 6500 in that there is nothing happenin' without a sup.

Good question from others: why would you want to use a 5500? In its time, its strengths were the variety of supported network types, notably the lame token ring support Cisco offered and ATM, of course. Problem is there is not routing in the sup. You will need to add an RSM-route switch module- for routing. If you want to support serial, the VIP-2 module is a daughter blade to the RSM. It all works well, but it is now way too old for the benefit. If you can't see your way to a 6500 with sup 720s (taking you into the US$70K range easily w/ redundant sups), then look at the nice 3800 routers for serial in combination with L3 switches like the 3560 or the overpriced 3750s. If you can get 3550s, they work nicely for SVI routing and will very much outperform the RSM on a 5500 The 5500s were rock-solid platforms. 3 ports of gig E for a whole blade is not acceptable anymore. If you want to put together a system that has serial support for a lot of asynch or T1, ATM, token ring, and fastEth, a 5509 will do a slow job but works. There is even redundant sup support. system code and firmware for the modules would be hard to come by these days, though.

good luck.

hey,,,,,thanks ...that helped....