ProCurve Networking Switch 6600 Series
Multilayer, high port density switches providing scalable, reliable network infrastructures

ProCurve Networking Switch 6600 Series Overview:

The HP ProCurve 6600 Switch Series consists of the most advanced data center server edge switches in the HP ProCurve Networking product line. The 6600 series includes 10/100/1000Base-T and 10-GbE SFP+ 1U rack-mount switches optimized for server edge connectivity with front-to-back (reversible) airflow, redundant hot-swappable power, and redundant hot-swappable fans. The foundation for all of these switches is a purpose-built, programmable ProVision ASIC that allows the most demanding networking features, such as Quality of Service (QoS) and security, to be implemented in a scalable yet granular fashion. With a variety of connectivity interfaces and expanded buffering, the 6600 switches offer excellent investment protection, flexibility, and scalability, as well as ease of deployment and reduced operational expense.

• Data center server access layer
• Front-to-back cooling, redundant power
• Layer 2 - Layer 4 and intelligent edge feature set
• Enterprise-class performance and security
• Scalable 10/100/1000 and 10-GbE connectivity

Features:
 

Data center optimized:

• Front-to-back airflow: designed to be co-located at the top of a server rack, the 6600 series supports front-to-back airflow (mechanically reversible) to support hot aisle/cold aisle configurations; the N+N fan tray is also hot-swappable, allowing easy replacement in the rack
• Modular internal power supplies: supports redundant, hot-swappable power supply configurations (units ship with one supply); power load is shared across dual supplies
• Server-to-switch distributed trunking: supports Layer 2 LACP groups from a single server across two different switches for active-active server NIC teaming configurations
• Power down idle ports: power down blocks of idle Gigabit and 10GbE ports to save power; idle ports can be reinitialized without rebooting; available on 6600-24XG / 48G / 48G-4XG models
• Out-of-band management: remotely monitor and manage switch via Ethernet out-of-band management port; eliminate need for terminal server network; available on 6600-24XG / 48G / 48G-4XG models
• Deployment/serviceability: data connectivity and management ports are all front-side accessible, and power supplies and fan trays are rear-side accessible to allow for easy maintenance and in-rack serviceability

Management:

• Remote Intelligent Mirroring: mirrors ingress/egress ACL-selected traffic from a switch port or VLAN to a local or remote 8200zl/6600/6200yl/5400zl/3500yl switch port anywhere on the network
• RMON, XRMON, and sFlow v5: provide advanced monitoring and reporting capabilities for statistics, history, alarms, and events
• Uni-Directional Link Detection (UDLD): monitors cable between two switches and shuts down the ports on both ends if the cable is broken turning the bi-directional link into uni-directional; this prevents network problems such as loops
• IEEE 802.1AB Link Layer Discovery Protocol (LLDP): automated device discovery protocol for easy mapping by network management applications
• Management simplicity: common networking features and CLI implementation (common across HP ProCurve 8200zl/6600/6200yl/5400zl/3500yl switches)
• Command authorization: leverages RADIUS to link a custom list of CLI commands to individual network administrator's login; also provides an audit trail
• Friendly port names: allow assignment of descriptive names to ports
• Multiple configuration files: multiple configuration files can be stored to the flash image
• Dual flash images: provides independent primary and secondary OS files for backup while upgrading

Connectivity:

• IPv6:
  • IPv6 host: switches are managed and deployed at the IPv6 network's edge
  • Dual stack (IPv4/IPv6): transitions from IPv4 to IPv6, supporting connectivity for both protocols
  • MLD snooping: forwards IPv6 multicast traffic to the appropriate interface, preventing traffic flooding
  • IPv6 ACL/QoS: supports ACL and QoS for IPv6 network traffic
  • IPv6 ready: switch hardware can support IPv6 routing, tunneling, and security--available when enabled via software updates in follow-on releases
     
• Auto--MDIX: automatically adjusts for straight-through or crossover cables on all 10/100 and 10/100/1000 ports
• Jumbo frames: on Gigabit and 10-Gb ports, allow high-performance remote backup and disaster-recovery services

Performance:

• IEEE 802.3ad Link Aggregation Control Protocol (LACP) and ProCurve trunking: support up to 60 trunks, each with up to 8 links (ports) per trunk
• IEEE 802.1s Multiple Spanning Tree: provides high link availability in multiple VLAN environments by allowing multiple spanning trees; provides legacy support for IEEE 802.1d and IEEE 802.1w
• Virtual Router Redundancy Protocol (requires Premium License): VRRP allows groups of two routers to dynamically back each other up to create highly available routed environments
• Server-to-switch distributed trunking: allows a server to connect to two switches with one logical trunk that consists of multiple physical connections; enables load-balancing and increases resiliency
• Sparing simplicity: common power supplies, fan trays, and transceivers are used among the 6600 series products

Layer 2 switching:

• ProCurve switch meshing: dynamically load-balances across multiple active redundant links to increase available aggregate bandwidth
• GARP VLAN Registration Protocol: allows automatic learning and dynamic assignment of VLANs
• IEEE 802.1ad Q-in-Q (requires Premium License): increases the scalability of Ethernet network by providing a hierarchical structure; connects multiple LANs on high-speed campus or metro network
• IEEE 802.1v protocol VLANs: isolate select non-IPv4 protocols automatically into their own VLANs

Layer 3 services:

• Loopback interface address: defines an address in RIP and OSPF that can always be reachable, improving diagnostic capability
• UDP helper function: UDP broadcasts can be directed across router interfaces to specific IP unicast or subnet broadcast addresses and prevent server spoofing for UDP services such as DHCP

Layer 3 routing:

• RIP: provides RIPv1 and RIPv2 routing
• Static IP routing: provides manually configured routing; includes ECMP capability
• OSPF (requires Premium License): includes host-based ECMP to provide link redundancy/scalable bandwidth and NSSA

Security:

• Source-port filtering: allows only specified ports to communicate with each other
• RADIUS/TACACS+: eases switch management security administration by using a password authentication server
• Secure Shell (SSHv2): encrypts all transmitted data for secure, remote command-line interface (CLI) access over IP networks
• Port security: allows access only to specified MAC addresses, which can be learned or specified by the administrator
• MAC address lockout: prevents particular configured MAC addresses from connecting to the network
• Detection of malicious attacks: monitors 10 types of network traffic and sends a warning when an anomaly that potentially can be caused by malicious attacks is detected
• Secure FTP: allows secure file transfer to and from the switch; protects against unwanted file downloads or unauthorized copying of switch configuration file
• Switch management logon security: can require either RADIUS or TACACS+ authentication for secure switch CLI logon
• Secure management access: all access methods--CLI, GUI, or MIB--are securely encrypted through SSHv2, SSL, and/or SNMPv3
• ICMP throttling: defeats ICMP denial-of-service attacks by enabling any switch port to automatically throttle ICMP traffic
• Virus throttling: detects traffic patterns typical of WORM-type viruses and either throttles or entirely prevents the ability of the virus to spread across the routed VLANs or bridged interfaces, without requiring external appliances
• STP BPDU port protection: blocks Bridge Protocol Data Units (BPDUs) on ports that do not require BPDUs, preventing forged BPDU attacks
• Dynamic IP lockdown: works with DHCP protection to block traffic from unauthorized hosts, preventing IP source address spoofing
• DHCP protection: blocks DHCP packets from unauthorized DHCP servers, preventing denial-of-service attacks
• Dynamic ARP protection: blocks ARP broadcasts from unauthorized hosts, preventing eavesdropping or theft of network data
• USB Secure Autorun (requires HP ProCurve Manager Plus): deploys, diagnoses, and updates switch using USB flash drive; works with secure credential to prevent tampering
• STP Root Guard: protects root bridge from malicious attack or configuration mistakes
• Management Interface Wizard: CLI-based step-by-step configuration tool to help ensure that management interfaces such as SNMP, telnet, SSH, SSL, Web, and USB are secured to desired level
• Access control lists (ACLs): provide filtering based on the IP field, source/destination IP address/subnet, and source/destination TCP/UDP port number on a per-VLAN or per-port basis
• Multiple user authentication methods:
  • Multiple IEEE 802.1X users per port: provides authentication of multiple IEEE 802.1X users per port; prevents user "piggybacking" on another user's IEEE 802.1X authentication
  • Web-based authentication: authenticates from Web browser for clients that do not support IEEE 802.1X supplicant; customized remediation can be processed on an external Web server
  • MAC-based authentication: client is authenticated with the RADIUS server based on client's MAC address
  • Concurrent IEEE 802.1X, Web, and MAC authentication schemes per port: switch port will accept up to 32 sessions of IEEE 802.1X, Web, and MAC authentications
   
• Switch CPU protection: provides automatic protection against malicious network traffic trying to shut down the switch
• Identity-driven ACL: enables implementation of a highly granular and flexible access security policy specific to each authenticated network user
• Secure Sockets Layer (SSL): encrypts all HTTP traffic, allowing secure access to the browser-based management GUI in the switch
• Security banner: displays a customized security policy when users log in to the switch

Multicast support:

• IP multicast routing (requires Premium License): includes PIM Sparse and Dense modes to route IP multicast traffic
• IP multicast snooping (data-driven IGMP): automatically prevents flooding of IP multicast traffic

Quality of Service (QoS):

• Layer 4 prioritization: enables prioritization based on TCP/UDP port numbers
• Class of Service (CoS): sets the IEEE 802.1p priority tag based on IP address, IP Type of Service (ToS), L3 protocol, TCP/UDP port number, source port, and DiffServ
• Bandwidth shaping:
  • Port-based rate limiting: per-port ingress/egress enforced maximum bandwidth
  • Classifier-based rate limiting: uses ACL to enforce maximum bandwidth for ingress traffic on each port
  • Guaranteed minimum: per-port, per-queue egress-based guaranteed minimum bandwidth
   
• Advanced classifier-based QoS: classifies traffic using multiple match criteria based on L2/3/4 information; applies QoS policies such as setting priority level and rate limit to selected traffic per port or per VLAN
• Traffic prioritization: allows real-time traffic classification into eight priority levels mapped to eight queues

Industry-leading warranty

• Lifetime warranty: for as long as you own the product, with next-business-day advance replacement (available in most countries)

Specifications:
 

Documentation:

Download the ProCurve Switch 6600 series Datasheet (PDF).