The Network switch cabinet is the most common network device with most network infrastructure and as such selection of new switches or upgrading is a key part of most network design projects. Wireless designs will have switches interfacing with access points. That will in some cases have an affect on the switch such as increased utilization, assigned switch ports, access lists, trunking, Power over Ethernet (PoE) wattage draw or spanning tree protocol. The decision to buy new switches or upgrade will be determined after considering the network assessment and design features specified. The 5 Network switch cabinet  components include switch chassis, supervisor engine, switching modules, power supplies and IOS/Cat OS software.

The Switch Chassis features include - dimensions, number of slots, processor slot assignments, switching fabric, supervisor engines supported, supervisor engine diversity, power supplies, power supply failover, rack units.

Switches are implemented with a Supervisor Engine (Switch Processor) for processing packets on a network segment. Routing is available with an onboard Multi Layer switch feature card (MSFC) or route processor running IOS code. The Network switch cabinet  Supervisor Engine running IOS code on the MSFC and the switch processor is in native mode, while those running Cat OS on the processor is in hybrid mode. Some engines won't support native and hybrid mode. The engine with no MSFC supports what is called Cat OS mode. Select the engine that matches design specifications. The MSFC module is integrated with the Supervisor Engine or upgradeable. You must implement a PFC module with any MSFC. Some Supervisor Engines have no MSFC module. The routing is integrated with the hardware and as such support native mode only.