Switches – 3550

The Cisco 3550 series is the most cost-effective used option for a true Cisco layer 3 switch. The 3550 series was the first low-price layer 3 switch (roughly $5000 list price new). These switches do most of the typical layer 2 features of modern Cisco switches, plus they support layer 3 forwarding, the configuration of layer 3 switching, and support for a variety of IP routing protocols.

Be careful to avoid the natural mistake of confusing the older Cisco Catalyst 3500XL series switches with the 3550 series. The easiest way to tell the difference between the two is that for 3500XL models, Cisco used the last 2 digits of the main 4-digit product number to identify the number of access ports in that model. For example, the 3500XL series includes models 3524 (24 port) and 3548 (48 port). For the different 3550 series, Cisco names all the 3550 models with exactly “3550” as 4 digits in the name, with additional digits to imply the number of ports – for example, 3550-24. This web page ignores the 3550XL series. Look at the 3550 datasheets for all the 3550 models.