The standalone RSM, which is a full-featured Cisco IOS router similar to a Cisco 7500 series router, is designed for interVLAN multiprotocol routing within and between Catalyst 5000 series switches. You can use the RSM as a standalone interVLAN router or add a Catalyst VIP2 to provide direct external network connections through a variety of media with the same port adapters used on Cisco 7500 series routers. The RSM/VIP2 combination provides routing between Catalyst VIP2 port adapters and between VLANs and Catalyst VIP2 port adapters. The Catalyst VIP2 supports any combination of Catalyst VIP2 port adapter-based network interface types. The RSM/VIP2 is a double-wide card module that occupies two consecutive Catalyst 5000, Catalyst 5505, or Catalyst 5500 slots.The Catalyst VIP2 requires that the RSM runs Cisco IOS Release 11.2(9)P or later and that the supervisor engine runs Catalyst 5000 series supervisor engine software release 2.3(1) or later. The Catalyst VIP2 central processing unit (CPU) is a Reduced Instruction Set Computer (RISC), Mips 4700 processor, with an internal operating frequency of 100 MHz and a 50-MHz system bus interface. The Catalyst VIP2 has 128 KB of nonvolatile random-access memory (NVRAM).