The phone discovery mechanism is intelligent enough to differentiate between an IP phone and a network interface card, and will not supply inline power to a network interface card or other device not designed to use inline power. Therefore, network administrators can depend upon automatic and centralized control of inline power that is safe to deploy and maintain. To support the new demand for phone power provided with the inline power feature, Cisco has developed a new 2500-watt power supply for the Catalyst 6000 family. This power supply has been designed to work in Catalyst 6000 family chassis' that will be loaded with inline power line cards and IP phones. For fault tolerance, two power supplies can be deployed in a single chassis to guard against a single power supply failure.
Network administrators can query the switch for available power resources.
Furthermore, users can configure two power supplies to operate in non redundant mode, increasing the overall power provided within a system. The Catalyst 6000 family supports multiple levels of network resiliency and serviceability designed to handle mission-critical applications. In dual supervisor configurations, Cisco Switchover will transfer switch control to the redundant supervisor within seconds for mission-critical applications requiring maximum network availability. All system elements are also field-replaceable units, maximizing serviceability and minimizing network downtime. With a voice T1 and services module installed, a single Catalyst 6000 family switch can provide enough voice trunking power to support an entire campus.