3550 runs IOS. That's an answer. I never allow any non-IOS router in production environment (except high end devices, such as Juniper, when benefits are very high). And 3550 is not expansive (yes, it is not cheap).

If you believe that IOS solves all problems, we live on different planets.

PS. How much ethernet ports do you have in the office? Do you have 100 K ports? If not, why do you need 128K MAC's? (I know only one case, when I need so much - some kind of DSL service...

Some kind of DSL service is indeed the background for my question.

In most cases, you have 500 - 5,000 ports in one building. If you have more, it is unlikely that you use 3550 switches. So, it is enough for the tasks (just as performance - it have _enough_ performance). Btw, I believed that catalist swithes have not any limitations for the MAC tables (because they use memory _on demand_); where did you get this limitations? /I may be wrong here/

If you believe Catalyst switches have no MAC address limitations, I have a nice plot of land in Florida to sell you :-) Ethernet switches today use CAM to hold the MAC address tables - this CAM has a finite size.

PPS. I do not know for sure, but 3550 should support traffic shaping, which makes bufferring. Technically, yes, CEF (with packet dropping) is not good to provide 2 Mbit by 100 Mbit link.

3550 only supports policing. Yes, I have worked extensive with 3550 and it doesn't have the features I need right now. Steinar Haug, Nethelp consulting, sthaug@nethelp.no