The H3C S6550X-HI series switches are high-bandwidth Ethernet switches independently developed by H3C, offering ultra-large switching capacity, high-density 25GE/40GE/100GE forwarding ports, support for hot-swappable power supplies and fans, and rich Layer 3 features. The H3C S6550X-HI series is positioned as a next-generation core/aggregation high-density, high-bandwidth switch. In enterprise networks, it can serve as an access device providing 100G to desktop applications, or as the core for small and medium-sized enterprises. In metropolitan area networks or industry users, it can provide 10 Gigabit/25G/40G/100G access to end users or aggregate low-end switches, and aggregate to core switches via 100GE fiber or link aggregation, working in conjunction with other H3C products to build high-performance end-to-end IP network solutions.

Features

1、Comware V9

Comware is a network operating system independently developed by H3C for use in network devices. It includes a wealth of network functions and supports a full range of network devices, from campus to data center, and from enterprise to carrier-grade. Comware not only breaks the monopoly of multinational corporations and the open-source community, but also drives the rapid development of the national basic network, and has broad application prospects and important strategic significance.

Based on Comware V7, Comware V9 has upgraded and adjusted its architecture to meet the needs of openness, containerization, programmability, and visualization, so as to better adapt to the current development trend of network operating systems.

Comware V9 has the following advantages:

Using the native Linux kernel, Comware V9's functionality is fully implemented in user space, making it easy to upgrade the kernel version.

It supports containerization, allowing Comware to be released in the form of containers. It also supports deploying containers to run third-party applications on devices running Comware V9, thus enhancing the openness of Comware.

By deepening the modular design concept, the business functions can be made independent of each other, and can be deployed independently or released as standalone software.

The architecture fully considers the needs of virtualized products, achieving a lightweight support architecture that makes the deployment of virtualized products more flexible and faster.

2. VxLAN features

The H3C S6550X-HI series switches support VXLAN (Virtual Extensible LAN). VXLAN encapsulates data packets sent by virtual machines in UDP, using the physical network's IP/MAC address as the outer header before transmission over the physical IP network. Upon arrival at the destination, the tunnel endpoint decapsulates the packets and sends the data to the target virtual machine. This solves the problem of long-distance virtual machine migration between geographically dispersed data centers and supports EVPN mode. The H3C S6550X-HI series switches are compatible with H3C AD-Campus solutions.

3. SmartMC (Intelligent Management Center)

As network scale increases, a large number of access devices are needed at the network edge, making the management of these devices extremely cumbersome. The main purpose of SmartMC is to solve the problem of centralized management of a large number of distributed network devices. It aims to address the maintenance tasks of small businesses primarily using switches. SmartMC achieves unified operation and management of the network through built-in device functionality and a graphical interface.

SmartMC's four business segments simplify the operation and management of small and medium-sized industrial parks:

Intelligent Management:

This mainly includes selecting device roles, configuring the FTP server, global configuration, and configuring the network management port.

Intelligent Operation and Maintenance:

This mainly includes group management, device or group upgrade and backup, monitoring, and device failure replacement.

Visualization:

This mainly includes network topology visualization and management, device list display, etc.

Intelligent Business:

This mainly includes user management: After creating and successfully activating network access users, these users can access the SmartMC network through the one-click armed port.

The H3C S6550X-HI series switches have built-in SmartMC, enabling vertical virtualization and unified management.

4. Multi-service integration

The H3C S6550X-HI series switches are based on H3C's Open Services Architecture (OAA), which not only provides the functions of traditional switches, but also integrates security module cards such as FW, IPS, and load balancer, Eagle Vision scanner cards, and mini-iMC cards, making the S6550X-HI series switches a converged multi-service carrier platform.

The H3C S6550X-HI series switches support high-performance converged AC functionality, enabling the management of a large number of wireless APs, saving users the cost of additional AC equipment, and achieving integrated wired and wireless management.

5. Highly available M-LAG architecture

The H3C S6550X-HI series switches support M-LAG (Multichassis Link Aggregation Group) cross-device link aggregation technology (formerly DRNI technology), which realizes cross-device link aggregation by virtualizing two physical devices into one device at the forwarding layer, maintaining the independence of the control layer and improving device-level reliability.

M-LAG decouples the control plane from the data plane, allowing each node device to be upgraded independently, ensuring zero interruption of user services.

The dual-active access of the device provides device-level redundancy protection and traffic load sharing, while improving system reliability.

Suitable for both overlay and traditional underlay scenarios, offering flexible networking options.

6. Comprehensive security control strategy

The H3C S6550X-HI series switches support AAA and RADIUS authentication, and support dynamic or static binding of user identification elements such as user accounts, IP, MAC, VLAN, and ports. They also support real-time management of online users in conjunction with H3C's iMC platform, enabling timely diagnosis and resolution of illegal network activities.

The H3C S6550X-HI series switches offer enhanced ACL control logic, supporting high-capacity inbound and outbound port ACLs, as well as VLAN-based ACL deployment, simplifying the user configuration process while avoiding the waste of ACL resources.

The H3C S6550X-HI series switches support secure boot, which performs security verification on system components during the boot process to prevent system data and signatures from being forged or tampered with, ensuring the correctness and integrity of system data and achieving secure and reliable device boot.

The H3C S6550X-HI series switches have a built-in TPM chip that supports trusted computing, ensuring that the device software runs as expected and preventing intrusion and tampering.

7. Multiple reliability protections

The H3C S6550X-HI series switches also feature multiple levels of reliability protection at both the device and link levels. They employ overcurrent protection, overvoltage protection, and overheat protection technologies.

Hot-swappable power supplies and fans enhance the hardware reliability of the device. The H3C S6550X-HI series supports modular power supply and fan components; all models' interface boards and power modules are hot-swappable without affecting normal operation. Furthermore, the entire unit supports power supply and fan fault detection and alarms, and can automatically adjust fan speed based on temperature changes.

It supports hardware-level dual boot, using two FLASH chips to store the boot software (system boot program), achieving hardware-level boot redundancy backup and avoiding the switch failing to start due to FLASH chip failure.

Supports ERPS Ethernet Ring Protection Protocol (G.8032). ERPS (Ethernet Ring Protection Switching) is a highly reliable and stable Ethernet ring network link layer technology that can achieve millisecond-level fast protection switching in Ethernet ring networks.

8. Excellent management

The H3C S6550X-HI series switches support a rich set of management interfaces, such as Console, out-of-band network port, and USB port. They support SNMPv1/v2/v3 and the iMC intelligent management center. CLI command line, TELNET, and FTP configuration are supported, along with OAM for easier device management. Furthermore, SSH2.0 and SSL encryption methods enhance management security.

9. Green and energy-saving design

H3C S6550X-HI series switches adopt new energy-saving chips.In addition, innovative architecture design solutions reduce switch power consumption, responding to the strategic call for "carbon peaking and carbon neutrality".

The H3C S6550X-HI series switches meet the EU RoHS standard for environmentally friendly and safe materials.