Cisco LAN switches vs ME switches

[carl_townshend]

Hi All

Can someone highlight the main differences between the normal Catalyst switches vs the Metro ethernet switches?

Cheers

[Mark Malone]

Hi
There small ISP switches the MEs support Ring topologys, MPLS ,there carrier switches, there going EOL now i think the ASR920s replaced them and they have same type modules you can purchase for them

[carl_townshend]

Hi Mark

What do you mean ring topologies? Do you mean SDH etc ?

[Mark Malone]

Hi

Its a Cisco feature , In our last place we used a setup like it a fiber ring around the city using REP for the ring

Standard catalyst wouldn't support this only ISP carrier switches MEs, ASRs and i see some of the industrial IE3000 support it too

good explanation in netscraftman website

https://www.netcraftsmen.com/resilient-ethernet-protocol/

The Resilient Ethernet Protocol (REP) is a Cisco proprietary protocol that provides an alternative to the Spanning Tree Protocol (STP). REP provides a way to control network loops, handle link failures, and improve convergence time.

[shaps]

It also features bridge domains and service instances which allowed flexibility when providing multi tenancy, as Mark said the ASR920 is the replacement for these now.