ACLs and TCAMs in Catalyst Switches

One of the things you need to look at when designing networks with Catalyst switches is the potential for TCAM exhaustion due to ACL and QoS configuration. Here are a couple of documents that explain the issue:

Catalyst 6500
http://www.cisco.com/en/US/products/hw/switches/ps708/products_white_paper09186a00800c9470.shtml

Catalyst 4500 and 4900 Series
http://www.cisco.com/en/US/products/hw/switches/ps663/products_tech_note09186a008054a499.shtml