The Cisco Catalyst Digital Building Switch is a plenum-rated, fanless, PoE switch, to be installed in provide connectivity for the “Digital Building”. The switch is designed to be placed in ceiling voids, and to provide localised connectivity for devices in areas of a building, for example, hotel rooms. These edge switches support 8 Fast Ethernet ports, and two gigabit uplink ports.
Power over Ethernet
The switches support PoE, (Power over Ethernet), but have some enhancements including the ability to quickly negotiate on ports, and to continue supplying power even when the switch is being upgraded. This means that the downstream devices will continue to be powered, despite switch resets. Up to 60W of UPoE (Universal Power over Ethernet) per port is available to power cameras, low-voltage LED lighting units, and building sensors, or other devices.
Smart-Building Support
The switch has Bluetooth and a CoAP (Constrained Application Protocol) proxy service, meaning integration of the switch into a smart building is easier. There is an Android and iOS app that allows these devices to be configured easily by non network aware installers. APIC-EM and Cisco Prime integration allows the devices to be managed centrally once installed, making these devices part of the SDN.
The switch is available in two models, one which provides 240W of power (CDB-8P) and 480W of power (CDB-8U), and run a LAN lite version of Cisco IOS as standard.
Cisco’s data sheet on the Digital Building Switches is available.