Multilayer switches can be used for a number of different tasks. We can use them for switching, routing or a combination of both. Cisco switches use the TCAM (Ternary Content Addressable Memory) to store layer 2 and 3 information for fast lookups. If you have no idea what TCAM is about, you might want to read my lesson about CEF before you continue.
SDM (Switching Database Manager) is used on Cisco Catalyst switches to manage the memory usage of the TCAM. For example, a switch that is only used for switching won’t require any memory to store IPv4 routing information. On the other hand, a switch that is only used as a router won’t need much memory to store MAC addresses.
SDM offers a number of templates that we can use on our switch, here’s an example of a Cisco Catalyst 3560 switch:
SW1#show sdm prefer
The current template is "desktop default" template.
The selected template optimizes the resources in
the switch to support this level of features for
8 routed interfaces and 1024 VLANs.
number of unicast mac addresses: 6K
number of IPv4 IGMP groups + multicast routes: 1K
number of IPv4 unicast routes: 8K
number of directly-connected IPv4 hosts: 6K
number of indirect IPv4 routes: 2K
number of IPv4 policy based routing aces: 0
number of IPv4/MAC qos aces: 0.5K
number of IPv4/MAC security aces: 1KAbove you can see that the current template is “desktop default” and you can see how much memory it reserves for the different items. Here’s an example of the other templates:
SW1#show sdm prefer ?
access Access bias
default Default bias
dual-ipv4-and-ipv6 Support both IPv4 and IPv6
ipe IPe bias
routing Unicast bias
vlan VLAN bias
| Output modifiers
<cr>Here are the SDM templates for this switch. We can change the template with the sdm prefer command:
Hi Anuj,
It does, you can try the show hardware profile status command and the hardware profile command in configuration mode.
Rene
Hi @ReneMolenaar
I have couple of questions :-
1-
Is SDM template just for TCAM or for both TCAM and CAM ? If it’s just for TCAM what is the need of storing unicast mac addresses since they are stored in CAM table ?
2-
Does layer two switch have TCAM table ?
3-
What are the uses of masks that used by unicast mac addresses, since mac address values need to be exact match to make forward decision ?
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Hi Hussein,
It’s for both, you can verify this by looking at the SDM template and MAC address table of the switch:
An L2 switch still has a TCAM table, they can do things like access-lists where we also use the TCAM.
You can see the content of the TCAM table for L2 entries with
show platform tcam table l2 detailorshow platform tcam table mac-address detail.For some MAC addr
... Continue reading in our forumHi Renee,
Is there any specif models of Switch support SDM. I have tried vIOS L2 image in Eve-ng and could not run Sh SDM Prefer?
Thanks
Hello Mohit
SDM is a feature that manages CAM and TCAM on a physical device. It doesn’t actually change the way a device will operate. Virtual devices on GNS3 don’t have CAM and TCAM, so there is nothing to manage. Remember GNS3 is an emulator, which means it runs real IOS operating systems on your computer hardware. The computer hardware doesn’t have CAM and TCAM, so the feature itself cannot function.
In order to see these features in action you will have to either use a simulator like Packet Tracer, which simulates the existence of these memory types and
... Continue reading in our forum