Cisco Systems introduces the Cisco Catalyst 6500 Series Supervisor Engine 32, the next generation of supervisor engine for the Cisco Catalyst 6500 Series of modular switches targeted for the wiring closet. Supervisor Engine 32, with Policy Feature Card 3B (PFC3B), extends core innovations to the network edge. Based on the industry-leading Cisco Catalyst 6500 Series Supervisor Engine 720 technology, the Cisco Catalyst 6500 Series Supervisor Engine 32 allows customers to cost-effectively enable hardware-based security features, such as denial of service (Dos) mitigation to protect network application performance, and scalable support for multicast applications at the network edge.PFC3B offers CPU rate limiters, hardware-based MAC learning, and user-based rate limiting. It limits threats from the Dynamic Host Configuration Protocol (DHCP) server, default gateway, or end-user IP address-spoofing using features such as DHCP Snooping, Dynamic Address Resolution Protocol (ARP) Inspection, and IP Source Guard. The supervisor engine allows close control over the end with which users can access the network and what privileges they are granted through identity-based networking with IEEE 802.1x, port-based security, and port-based access lists. These integrated security features are hardware based and can be enabled concurrently without compromising system performance as traffic levels increase.