The Cisco Catalyst 9000 Switching Family is the next generation of the Cisco Catalyst portfolio of enterprise LAN Access, Distribution and Core switches. Catalyst 9000 switches extend Cisco networking leadership with breakthrough innovations in Hybrid Work, IoT, Cloud and Security.

The Catalyst 9000 Switching Family addresses the challenges of today’s always-on hybrid work to help you focus on the needs of the business, not on the network — now and for whatever the future brings. These switches are designed from the ground up for higher performance, greater flexibility, security and resiliency.

Consistent hardware architecture

The Catalyst 9000 switching hardware uses a consistent internal and external design.

Internally, the hardware uses either Cisco Unified Access Data Plane (UADP) or the Cisco Silicon One ASICs, providing flexibility and capacity for packet handling. The hardware also uses a common onboard x86-based CPU to allow the switch to host additional applications (beyond those normally possible on a network switch).

Common software architecture

The Catalyst 9000 Family of Switches runs a common operating system, the Cisco IOS XE. Cisco IOS XE is an enhanced, open and programmable OS and with a 30-year history and thousands of features, it is inarguably the most feature-rich OS in the networking industry. A common code base shared across the switching platforms enables end-to-end feature support and feature parity throughout the network.