Cisco C9606R-BN-A Full Product Description

1. Short Overview

• BN: Base Network pre-configured base hardware bundle (standard entry-level pre-populated chassis kit)
• -A: Factory pre-assembled integrated chassis with pre-installed supervisors, fan tray and minimum redundant power supplies
  This pre-built bundle eliminates separate component ordering and manual on-site assembly, delivering baseline high availability out of the box. It runs containerized Cisco IOS XE, supporting up to 25.6 Tbps non-blocking switching capacity with 6.4 Tbps full-duplex wire-speed bandwidth per line card slot, compatible with multi-rate 1G/10G/25G/50G/100G/400G fiber and multigigabit PoE++ copper line cards.

Suffix Breakdown

• C9600: Catalyst 9600 high-performance modular core switch platform
• 6: Total 6 horizontal internal chassis slots
• R: Redundant HA hardware architecture (dual supervisor support, N+1/N+N power/fan redundancy)
• BN: Base Network entry-level pre-configured hardware bundle (standard baseline factory kit)
• -A: Factory pre-assembled unit with pre-mounted core HA hardware (supervisors, fan tray, minimum PSUs)

Core Differentiators

1. vs bare empty C9606R: Empty chassis only includes fan tray; C9606R-BN-A ships factory preloaded with dual supervisors and minimum redundant power supplies for instant deployment.
2. vs C9606R-A standard bundle: C9606R-A is a generic pre-assembled chassis; C9606R-BN-A is Cisco official standardized Base Network ordering bundle with fixed baseline hardware bill of materials for standardized campus network rollouts.
3. vs enhanced C9606R-E: C9606R-E comes with full 4× N+N redundant PSUs and enhanced thermal fan tray; C9606R-BN-A uses minimal 2× PSUs for basic N+1 power redundancy to lower entry cost.
4. vs compact C9604R-BN-A: C9604R-BN-A only has 2 line card expansion slots; C9606R-BN-A provides 4 line card slots for larger port scalability for medium campus backbones.
5. vs Catalyst 9400 distribution switches: Catalyst 9400 targets access/distribution aggregation; Catalyst 9600 series delivers Silicon One high-speed forwarding, native 100G/400G support and enlarged L2/L3 forwarding tables for core backbone transport.

2. Chassis Slot Architecture & Hardware Capacity

Fixed 6 Horizontal Slot Layout (Top to Bottom 1–6)

• Slots 1 & 2: Hot-swappable line card slots
• Slots 3 & 4: Dual factory pre-installed supervisor engine slots (1+1 HA active/standby)
• Slots 5 & 6: Hot-swappable line card slots
  Total expandable line card capacity: 4 independent slots for fiber/copper uplink/access modules

Backplane Bandwidth & Forwarding Performance

• Maximum wired non-blocking switching capacity: 25.6 Tbps (enabled via factory pre-installed C9600X-SUP-2 Gen2 Silicon One supervisors)
• Per-slot full-duplex wire-speed bandwidth: 6.4 Tbps
• Inter-supervisor high-speed synchronization interconnect: 400 Gbps for low-latency SSO/NSF state replication
• Maximum packet forwarding throughput: 8 Bpps with C9600X-SUP-2 Gen2 supervisors; limited to 3 Bpps with Gen1 C9600-SUP-1

Maximum Supported Port Density (4 fully populated line card slots)

1. High-speed fiber interfaces
   • 400G QSFP-DD: Up to 8 ports total
   • 100G/40G QSFP28: Up to 128 ports total
   • 50G/25G SFP56/SFP28: Up to 224 ports total
   • 10G/1G SFP+/SFP: Up to 384 ports via QSFP breakout adapters
2. Multigigabit copper RJ45 PoE++
   • Up to 192 × 10G/5G/2.5G/1G mGig high-power PoE++ ports with compatible Catalyst 9600 copper line cards

Standard Factory Pre-Installed Hardware for C9606R-BN-A Base Network Bundle

1. Dual redundant C9600X-SUP-2 Gen2 Silicon One supervisors with onboard SSD storage for logging, telemetry and containerized applications
2. Standard N+1 hot-swappable fan tray with integrated variable-speed fans
3. Minimum 2× high-efficiency Platinum AC power supplies for basic N+1 power redundancy (expandable to full 4 PSU N+N redundancy later)

Supported Power Supply Modules

• 2000W / 3000W high-efficiency Platinum AC PSUs (factory standard for BN-A bundle)
• Optional 2000W DC / HVDC power supply variants for telco and colocation data center environments
• Input voltage range: AC 90–264V 47–63Hz; DC -40V ~ -72V
• All PSUs meet ≥90% energy efficiency standards to reduce power consumption and heat generation

Cooling System

• Hot-swappable N+1 redundant fan tray with side-to-side horizontal airflow (air intake left side, exhaust right side)
• Full front-panel service access for fan tray replacement; optional rear tray access for optimized cable routing
• Dynamic intelligent fan speed auto-adjustment based on internal chassis temperature to minimize acoustic noise during low-traffic off-peak hours

3. Physical & Environmental Specifications

Physical Dimensions & Weight

• Form factor: Standard 8 RU rack-mountable chassis
• Dimensions (H × W × D): 13.95 × 17.4 × 16.1 inches (35.43 × 44.20 × 40.89 cm)
• Pre-assembled BN-A bundle weight (dual SUP-2, 2 AC PSUs, standard fan tray): 69.0 lb (31.3 kg)

Operating Environmental Compliance

• Normal operating temperature: -5°C ~ +40°C up to 3000m altitude; short-term burst -5°C ~ +50°C up to 1800m altitude
• Storage/transport temperature: -40°C ~ +75°C
• Humidity tolerance: 10%–95% relative humidity non-condensing
• Global regulatory certifications: UL 60950-1, IEC 60950-1, EN 60950-1, CSA-C22.2, GB 4943, NEBS seismic compliance, RoHS, EMC Class A for enterprise data center and wiring closet deployment

Hardware Asset & Security Hardware

• Embedded passive UHF RFID tags integrated on chassis, dual supervisors, PSUs and fan tray for centralized enterprise asset lifecycle tracking
• ACT2 secure authentication chip on all hot-swappable modules to detect unauthorized third-party non-Cisco hardware insertion and block uncertified modules

4. Native Enterprise-Grade High Availability (HA) Capabilities

1. Dual 1+1 pre-installed Gen2 supervisor redundancy
   • SSO (Stateful Switchover), NSF (Non-Stop Forwarding) to eliminate packet loss during supervisor failover
   • Full ISSU (In-Service Software Upgrade) for IOS XE firmware version upgrades without traffic interruption
2. Universal OIR (Online Insertion and Removal) support
   All supervisors, line cards, power supplies, and fan trays support hot plug/unplug without full chassis power shutdown
3. Modular N+1 power redundancy
   Two factory pre-installed power supplies deliver basic fault tolerance; expandable to 4 PSU full N+N redundancy later for higher uptime requirements
4. N+1 redundant fan tray internal fan array; single fan fault does not compromise chassis cooling performance under full load
5. StackWise Virtual support: Two C9606R-BN-A base network chassis can be paired to form a single logical virtual core switch for multi-chassis fabric HA

5. IOS XE Full Software & Security Feature Suite

Campus & SD-Access Fabric Core Functions

• Hardware-accelerated native VXLAN EVPN forwarding for Cisco SD-Access intent-based wired/wireless enterprise fabric
• Massive-scale L2/L3 forwarding table capacity optimized for multi-building medium campus deployments
• Up to 32-way ECMP equal-cost multi-path uplink load balancing
• Complete routing protocol stack: BGP, OSPF, EIGRP, IS-IS
• PVLAN private VLAN segmentation, cross-card LACP/PAGP EtherChannel, MSTP/RSTP spanning tree toolkit

Hardware-Accelerated Security Features

• IEEE 802.1AE MACsec-256 port-level encryption for all fiber/copper uplink traffic
• TrustSec SGT tag end-to-end policy segmentation, Encrypted Traffic Analytics (ETA) for hidden malware threat detection
• Wire-speed hardware ACL filtering, CoPP control plane policing to protect supervisor CPU resources
• DHCP Snooping, DAI, IP Source Guard, IEEE 802.1X, MAB, WebAuth wired access authentication
• AAA authentication support via TACACS+/RADIUS/LDAP

QoS & Precision Timing

• 8 independent hardware priority queues per port, WRR/DRR congestion scheduling, per-port policing/marking/shaping
• IEEE 1588v2 PTP hardware timing for synchronized broadcast video, unified voice, and industrial control networks

Automation, Programmability & Observability

• Model-driven open programmability: NETCONF, RESTCONF, YANG data models, gNMI, on-box Python scripting
• Real-time streaming telemetry, IPFIX flexible netflow export, continuous port latency and buffer utilization monitoring
• GOLD non-disruptive online diagnostic tests for real-time chassis and module health inspection
• Native seamless integration with Cisco DNA Center for zero-touch provisioning, unified policy management, and full lifecycle automation

6. Typical Deployment Scenarios

1. Medium Enterprise Standard SD-Access Fabric Core
   Dual virtual paired C9606R-BN-A base bundles serve as baseline redundant fabric border nodes; 10G/25G fiber uplinks connect downstream Catalyst 9400 distribution switches, supporting thousands of wired and Wi-Fi 6/6E wireless endpoints with standardized pre-built baseline hardware for mass campus rollouts.
2. Small-to-Mid Hybrid Data Center Spine Backbone
   40G/100G QSFP28 line cards connect leaf switches, storage arrays, and multi-cloud gateway devices; hardware VRF multi-tenancy logically isolates enterprise, virtual server, and cloud tenant workloads for cost-sensitive mid-size data centers.
3. Medium-Density Unified Wireless Aggregation Core
   25G SFP56 uplinks aggregate fleets of multi-radio wireless controllers and enterprise APs; hardware QoS prioritizes low-latency voice, video, and real-time collaboration traffic for regional campus wireless networks.
4. Standard Multi-Building Education & Government Campus Backbone
   Factory standardized Base Network pre-assembled chassis meets public sector standardized network hardware procurement requirements; centralized security, power, and fabric policy management via Cisco DNA Center, cutting deployment labor time via factory pre-integrated core HA components.
5. Regional Branch Headquarters Core Switch
   Balanced cost and baseline redundancy for regional HQ core networks; expandable power and line card capacity to support future business growth without full chassis replacement.

7. Standard Package Contents of C9606R-BN-A Base Network Pre-Assembled SKU

• Pre-installed dual C9600X-SUP-2 Gen2 Silicon One supervisor engines with onboard SSD storage
• Integrated standard N+1 hot-swappable fan tray
• Minimum 2 × Platinum high-efficiency AC power supplies for basic N+1 power redundancy
  Integrated rack mounting hardware kit, front/rear cable management brackets and cable guides
  Complete hardware installation guide, global safety, EMC, NEBS seismic, and RoHS regulatory compliance documentation

Separately Sold Mandatory & Optional Accessories

1. Mandatory add-ons for full operational functionality
   • Catalyst 9600 series fiber/copper line cards (SFP/SFP28/QSFP28/QSFP-DD or multigigabit PoE++ copper modules)
   • SFP/SFP28/QSFP28/QSFP-DD optical transceivers, breakout adapters, and fiber patch cords
2. Optional upgrade hardware
   • Additional AC/DC/HVDC power supply modules to expand to full N+N 4 PSU redundancy
   • Supervisor SSD storage expansion modules for increased telemetry/log storage capacity
   • Spare replacement fan tray, spare power supply units for on-site hot swap inventory
3. Software Licenses
   • DNA Advantage perpetual license required for full SD-Access EVPN, MACsec encryption, streaming telemetry, and advanced automation features
   • DNA Essentials base license for fundamental Layer 2/Layer 3 switching and routing functionality

Short Commercial Catalog Summary for Quotation