Why Buy Cisco Catalyst 2960-X Series?Industry Trends That Create Opportunities for You The world’s most deployed switch just got better. As a Cisco distributor, you can take advantage of a large refresh opportunity by starting new conversations with your partners and their existing installed base to accelerate their campus switching business. The increasing popularity of bring-your-own-device (BYOD) deployments, video, and cloud applications is changing expectations regarding how people conduct business and stay connected. These trends have a profound impact on networks. Today customers are looking to take full advantage of these trends to increase productivity, enable superior employee collaboration, and increase business agility, but they are struggling with poor application and network performance, network security issues, operational complexity, and exponential costs.

To address these challenges and transform IT, Cisco introduced the Cisco Catalyst 2960-X Series (stackable Gigabit Ethernet access switches) to enable network connectivity for enterprise, midmarket, and branch office locations. These switches enable reliable and highly secure business operations with lower total cost of ownership through a range of innovative features, including Cisco FlexStack Plus, Application Visibility and Control, Power over Ethernet Plus (PoE+), innovative power management, and Catalyst Smart Operations. This highly differentiated and innovative product will help you lock out the competition and win back port share. With these switches you can participate in the huge refresh opportunity from a large installed base that is fully amortized, and increase deal size by creating architectural linkages with other Cisco products, such as Cisco Identity Services Engine (ISE), and Cisco Prime.

Solution OverviewKey differentiators of the new Catalyst 2960-X Series access switches include:Catalyst 2960-X Series, Key Different Features1. Doubling everything: Support business growth with twice the stack members, twice the bandwidth, and twice the CPU2. Now with Application Visibility and Control: Superior business intelligence with NetFlow Lite3. Layer 3 routing for the first time in a Catalyst 2000-level switch, for smarter operations 4. Investment protection: Mixed stacking with existing Catalyst 2960-S and 2960-SF Series switches5. Greenest Catalyst switch ever: Best-in-class energy efficiency with switch and downlink hibernation and more 6. Lock out the competition and differentiate, with the Catalyst 2960-X as a highly differentiated and innovative product to win back port share

The Cisco Catalyst 2960-X Series is the next generation of the world’s most widely

deployed access switches, the game changing product to drive IT transformation. The switches are scalable, smart, simple, and secure and at the same time provide investment protection. They also provide Layer3 routing capability and application-aware intelligence, with double the scale of the existing generation.

Key capabilities, Cisco Catalyst 2960-X Series Switches•Cisco Catalyst 2960-X Series Switches provide Layer 2 switching and have one fixed power supply with an optional external redundant power supply. They provide 24 or 48 Gigabit Ethernet wire-rate ports with support for Power over Ethernet (PoE) and PoE Plus (PoE+) and four Gigabit Ethernet Small Form-Factor Pluggable (SFP) or two 10 Gigabit Ethernet Enhanced SFP (SFP+) uplinks. With FlexStack Plus technology, the Catalyst 2960-X Series switches can be placed in stacks of up to eight (for a total of 384 Gigabit Ethernet ports) with up to 80 Gbps stacking capacity for high scalability. •The Catalyst 2960-XR switches offer all the features of the Catalyst 2960-X. In addition, they introduce Layer 3 routing capabilities for the first time in the Catalyst 2960 Series. They also have two field-replaceable redundant power supply modules for power redundancy.

As part of the Cisco Unified Access solution portfolio, the Catalyst 2960-X switches are fully integrated with Cisco ISE for one policy and with Cisco Prime for one management, to simplify BYOD deployment. The Cisco Catalyst 2960-X platform preserves customer investment by supporting mixed stacking with existing Cisco Catalyst 2960-S and 2960-SF switches.

What does customer benefit?ScalableCatalyst 2960-X Series switches are scalable to meet growth needs today and in the future. These switches offer high density, with 24 or 48 Gigabit Ethernet ports and 1 and 10 Gigabit Ethernet uplinks for desktop connectivity and are ready for 1-Gbps wireless (802.11ac). They deliver wire-rate performance on all ports to keep up with increasing traffic by exploiting the full capacity of each port. The switches support FlexStack Plus with up to 80 Gbps of stack bandwidth and up to eight members in a stack for 384 Gigabit Ethernet ports, doubling many performance aspects of the existing Cisco Catalyst 2960-S Series Switches. They offer a high-capacity 740W power supply that can power all 48 ports for PoE or 24 ports for PoE+. The benefits of PoE and PoE+ are easy and rapid deployment of IP endpoints, such as IP phones, access points, and cameras, while saving the cost of installing power outlets.

The Catalyst 2960-X Series is resilient, with control-plane redundancy across FlexStack Plus switches. This feature minimizes traffic disruption if the stack member fails. The Catalyst 2960-XR is also equipped with redundant power supplies for power resilience.

Smart

The Cisco Catalyst 2960-X Series Switches are smart, with intelligent access services, in depth application visibility and control, and best-in-class energy efficiency.•Built with True Stacking–FlexStack Plus enables unified configuration and unified single IP address management across all stack members for simplicity, efficiency, and scalability. –Cross-stack quality of service (QoS) automatically applies the QoS configuration of the master switch to other stack members to ensure QoS consistency, configuration accuracy, and simplicity.–Cross-stack high availability provides for automatic election of a new master switch in case of stack master failure for greater resilience.•Built for network programmability: Cisco One Platform Kit (onePK) is an easy-to-use software-defined networking (SDN) toolkit for development, automation, rapid service creation, and more. Catalyst 2960-X Series Switches are onePK ready, enabling customers to build applications to automate and create services across the campus. •Built for application visibility and control: For the first time, the Catalyst 2960-X Series supports NetFlow Lite services that enable IT teams to monitor and record important traffic flows through a packet-sampling mechanism. When combined with Cisco Prime or other NetFlow collectors, it can help IT prioritize business-critical applications.•Built for unified access: –One policy through integration with Cisco ISE–One management through integration with Cisco Prime•Built for green IT—the greenest access switch ever:–Cisco EnergyWise monitors and controls PoE and PoE+ device power consumption to reduce energy costs. It can turn the connected IP devices on or off to reduce power consumption based on predefined policies. For example, the IP phones can be set to turn off automatically after business hours.–Energy-Efficient Ethernet (EEE) enables dynamic power savings on all switch ports, saving about 15W for a 48 port-switch and 8W for a 24 port-switch. –The Catalyst 2960-X Series introduces two new innovative energy-saving sleep modes for the switch. Switch Hibernation mode puts the switch to sleep, consuming as little as 6W, compared to approximately 50W in active mode.

Downlink Hibernation mode shuts down the downlink interface to save 0.5W per port when the connected devices are not in use, even if the devices are not EEE aware. Downlink Hibernation mode also shuts down PoE and PoE+ to save additional energy.

Collectively these features are game changers in green technology that can reduce switch power consumption by up to 80 percent.

SimpleCisco Catalyst 2960-X Series Switches are simple to deploy, manage, and

troubleshoot. As part of the Cisco Unified Access portfolio, the Cisco Catalyst 2960-X Series Switches are fully integrated with Cisco Prime, to offer simple operation from a central location.

They can also be managed by Cisco Network Assistant, which features an intuitive GUI with which users can easily apply common services across Cisco switches, routers, and access points.

Cisco Catalyst 2960-X Series Switches offer Catalyst Smart Operations features to lower the total cost of ownership:•Smart Install automatically downloads Cisco IOS® Software and configures the switches for zero-touch deployment.•Auto Smart Ports automatically configures (for example, VLAN, security, and QoS settings) ports based on device type (such as IP phones, printers, and access points) for simplified configuration and rapid deployment.•Smart Call Home offers proactive diagnostics and remediation of hardware and software issues.

SecureCisco Catalyst 2960-X Series Switches offer security features to help ensure easy and highly secure network deployment and access. The security policies can be set consistently across the network by Cisco ISE.

The Catalyst 2960-X switches offer key security features:•Standards-based 802.1X enables port-based network access control. 802.1X Monitor mode simplifies first-time 802.1X deployments by allowing user traffic to pass through while monitoring the access. IT can then implement 802.1X in phases.•Unlike competitors, Cisco TrustSec® enables scalable and dynamic role-based (that is, finance/marketing, employees/partners) security policies, rather than tedious, manual static IP address or port-based security and avoids access control list (ACL) eruptions. •IPv6 first-hop security helps protect against IPv6 address theft and malicious attacks, even in Layer2 networks.

Investment Protection, Catalyst 2960-X Series SwitchesUnlike competitors’ switches, Catalyst 2960-X Series Switches preserve customer investment by allowing mixed stacking with existing Catalyst 2960-S and 2960-SF switches. Customers can grow their access networks by adding the new 2960-X switches to their existing 2960-S and 2960-SF stacks.

Target CustomerCisco recommends this product for customers that need to:•Simplify the management of their unified wired and wireless infrastructure•Build resilient converged network infrastructure to deploy BYOD, video, cloud

applications, and 1-Gbps wireless solutions•Improve the user experience and have granular control over policy •Address more traffic in the future, including increasing numbers of devices (of all kinds)•Scale its business for a larger amount of traffic and devices in the unified wired and wireless network•Protect their investments in network infrastructure and build for future expansion

Table1 lists the Cisco solutions applicable to various customer deployments and needs.Table1 When to Sell Catalyst 2960-X Series Switches

Key Questions to Ask Customers to Help Identify Opportunities1. •Are you adopting virtual desktop infrastructure (VDI), bring your own device

(BYOD), and 1-Gbps Wireless (802.11ac) and are concerned about network performance, scalability, exponentially increasing bandwidth needs, and security?

2. •Are you looking for a simple, secure solution that will simplify branch office IT operations and reduce costs?

3. •Are you looking for a solution that will protect your network investment and enhance your network performance?

4. •Are you afraid to support new devices or try new applications because you think they might negatively affect your network capacity and ultimately slow down performance or reduce network uptime?

5. •Are you concerned about power problems bringing down your network, incurring additional operating expenses and causing lost productivity?

6. •What are your plans for using your network to reduce energy costs? 7. •Would you benefit from doubling your current output and getting more from

your investments? Would you be interested in providing the efficiency of PoE to a wider range of devices?

Handling Objections

I already have Catalyst 2000-level switches in my branch. Why should I get a Catalyst 2960-X Series Switch? Cisco Catalyst 2960-X Series stackable switches are the next generation of the world’s most widely deployed access switches. Talk about:•Scalability for growth and intelligent services•Operational simplicity to lower TCO•Superior security capabilities•Best-in-class energy efficiency•Investment protection due to mixed stacking with existing Catalyst 2960-S and 2960-SF switches•Twice the stack members, twice the bandwidth, and twice the CPU•Application Visibility and Control: Superior business intelligence with NetFlow Lite•Layer 3 routing, for smarter operations•Best-in-class energy efficiency with switch and port hibernation

My network is secure enough already. How can the Cisco Catalyst 2960-X Series help me improve my network security further? Cisco Catalyst 2960-X Series Switches offer security features to help ensure easy and highly secure network deployment and access. The security policies can be set consistently across the network by the Cisco Identity Services Engine (ISE).

Standards-based 802.1X enables port-based network access control. 802.1X Monitor mode simplifies first-time 802.1X deployments by allowing user traffic to pass through while monitoring the access. Unlike competitors, Cisco TrustSec enables scalable and dynamic role-based security policies and avoids ACL explosions.

Cisco switches are too expensive. Why should I buy Cisco when I can get lessexpensive gear? How do the Cisco Catalyst 2960-X Series Switches lower my IT CapEx and OpEx? How do I know I will get a good return on my investment?•Unlike competitors’ switches, the Catalyst 2960-X Series switches preserve the customer’s investment by allowing mixed stacking with existing Catalyst 2960-S and 2960-SF switches. Customers can grow their access networks by adding the new 2960-X switches to their existing 2960-S and 2960-SF stacks•The Catalyst 2960-X Series are the greenest switches ever: Cisco EnergyWise monitors and controls PoE and PoE+ device power consumption to reduce energy costs. It can turn connected IP devices on or off to reduce power consumption based on predefined policies. For example, the IP phone can be set to turn off automatically after business hours. Energy-Efficient Ethernet (EEE) enables dynamic power savings on all switch ports, saving about 15W for a 48-port switch and 8W for a 24-port switch. Collectively, these features are game changers in green technology that can reduce switch power consumption by up to 80 percent.•The Cisco Catalyst portfolio offers some of the best investment protection in the industry, with forward and backward compatibility of new components. This paradigm protects your investment with the continued availability of field upgrades and new services, and with simplified network management. Cisco Catalyst switches

also help improve productivity by reducing network downtime while increasing network capabilities.

I don’t have the budget to upgrade my network.•The cost of supporting existing solutions may be higher than the cost of supporting newer equipment. The older the equipment gets, the more frequently it needs maintenance.•Have you thought about using financing as a means of overcoming budget restrictions? Financing is a flexible alternative, and Cisco Capital® can provide a financing solution tailored to your business and budget needs and help you proactively manage equipment lifecycles.•Cisco offers the Technology Migration Program, which enables you to trade in existing networking gear, including competitive products, for credit toward new purchases. Enhancements have been made to this program, making it easier than ever to take advantage of the credits.

We have limited staff for an extensive network deployment.•Cisco Catalyst 2960-X Series Switches are simple to deploy, manage, and troubleshoot. As part of the Cisco Unified Access portfolio, the Cisco Catalyst 2960-X Series Switches are fully integrated with Cisco Prime, to offer simple operation from a central location. They can also be managed by Cisco Network Assistant, which features an intuitive GUI with which users can easily apply common services across Cisco switches, routers, and access points. •Additionally, for both wired and wireless LANs, we offer services to help you design, deploy, and migrate to a secure, high-performance wired and wireless solution.

Cisco Smart Business Architecture offers step-by-step instructions for quick and simplified deployment based on a standardized, repeatable process. With limited staff, maintaining network performance is critical. Cisco Prime makes it easy for you to gain visibility into applications andperformance, helping you optimize network resources, troubleshoot performance problems, and ensure a consistent user experience.

Partner OpportunityCisco, along with you, our distributor, can help partners capture this huge refresh opportunity, create sales pipeline, increase deal sizes, and solidify their role as trusted advisers for their customers.

With Cisco Catalyst 2960-X Series Switches, you can:•Reduce your sales cycle by highlighting the unique and intelligent capabilities of the Catalyst 2960-X Series switches against the competition and taking advantage of the industry’s largest existing installed base. •Help your partners sell new capabilities more quickly to their existing customers by using mixed stacking of Catalyst 2960-X Series switches with existing Catalyst 2960-S

and 2960-SF switches. Lock the competition out with investment protection. •Capture a large refresh opportunity: Catalyst 2000-level switches are the world’s most deployed switches, with more than 420 million ports, or approximately 14 million switches shipped. A large part of the installed based is fully amortized.•Help your partners start new conversations with their existing customer base by addressing BYOD, bandwidth, and security challenges. •Increase your partners’ profitability by adding services with the Catalyst 2960-X Series to simplify the implementation of some of these complex solutions for customers.•Increase deal size through architecture linkages and cross-sell opportunities by combining Cisco Catalyst 2960-X Series Switches with other offerings, such as Cisco ISE, Cisco Prime, wireless, services, and offer differentiated solutions.•Create predictable revenue streams by creating migration projects that are phased in over time for the large number of older Catalyst 2000-level switches that have been in operation for five to seven years and are fully amortized. These switches are ready for refresh. If we don’t respond to this opportunity, our competitors will.•Create sales pipeline and enhance profitability with Cisco programs and incentivesthat help your partners build their infrastructure practice and capitalize on new BYOD and mobile market opportunities.•Accelerate your business with prevalidated network designs, value-added services that your partners can resell, and flexible deployment models that help your partners quickly design and deploy solutions for their customers.

Competitive PositioningThe Cisco Catalyst 2960-X Series Switches are scalable, smart, simple, and secure and are designed to reduce total cost of ownership.

HP and Huawei have increased the competitive intensity in the switching market. The Catalyst 2960-X will put Cisco on the offensive to win back port and market share.The competition lacks critical features when it comes to: •Virtual vs. true stacking•Backward compatibility •Scalable PoE•Power savings and energy efficiency •Automation•Security without compromise•IPv6 first-hop security •Support for MAC Security (MACsec)

Table2: shows how the features of the Catalyst 2960-X Series compare to competitors’ switches.Table2 Comparison of the Catalyst 2960-X Series to Competitors’ Switches

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