> > > A 3548 is only layer 2 anyway, i.e. ethernet switching, i.e. below > IP... A model sometimes confused with the 3548 is the 3550-48, the > 48x100M member of the 3550 series that replaced the 3500 series and as > such the 3548, which does have layer 3 functionality in the EMI > releases, it's pretty good too with wire speed forwarding even when > using some of the layer 3 featureset... But, it won't do any layer 3 > IPv6 stuff as some of the tricks used to get the speed include having > certain functions done with dedicated silicon which can't cope with > IPv6 and of course can't be upgraded with firmware (some versions of > firmware have claimed some IPv6 support, but, I've not seen any > success with it) > > d > > I'm the OP in case you've forgotten since this thread has been so active but just wanted to say thanks to everyone for the feedback! On the subject of layer 3 switching, it's an absolute must for us. IPv6 is not important at all to us. I, as the admin, care most about manageability, servicability (not sure if that's a word), and security. I'll probably rule out anything that doesn't offer at least 48 ports of 10/100/1000, ssh, port mirroring or spanning sessions, snmp, unique spanning trees per vlan, and something like vrrp. It would be nice to have 802.3ad (I think that's the right one) capability to do some link aggregation between the switches as well. Not really asking for anything in this post but just providing more information in case you're interested. Thanks again.