Cisco C9600X-LC-56YL4C Full Product Description

1. Short Overview

Suffix Breakdown

• C9600X: Silicon One Gen2 optimized line card, exclusive to C9600X-SUP-2 supervisors
• LC: Line Card modular combo fiber aggregation/uplink module
• 56: Total 56 SFP56 multi-rate downlink ports
• YL: SFP56 multi-rate interface (1G/10G/25G/50G fiber aggregation)
• 4C: 4×QSFP28 high-speed uplink ports (40G/100G)

Core Differentiators

1. vs C9600-LC-40YL4CD combo card: LC-40YL4CD only provides 40 SFP56 ports plus mixed QSFP56/QSFP-DD ultra-high uplinks; C9600X-LC-56YL4C raises SFP56 port count to 56 for far denser 25G/50G downlink aggregation, with simplified QSFP28-only 100G uplinks for campus core deploymentsCisco.
2. vs C9600-LC-48YL (48×SFP28): LC-48YL caps at 48 25G-only ports and supports Gen1 supervisors; C9600X-LC-56YL4C offers 56×50G-capable SFP56 ports plus native 100G uplinks, Gen2 Silicon One exclusive, full PHY-based WAN MACsec supportCisco.
3. vs C9600X-LC-32CD pure high-speed card: LC-32CD eliminates low-speed SFP ports and focuses solely on 100G/400G core uplinks; C9600X-LC-56YL4C prioritizes massive dense SFP downlink capacity for campus distribution aggregation use cases3p.cisco.c....
4. vs copper LC-48TX: Pure fiber long-distance trunking design; copper line cards only serve short-range rack-local server aggregation without optical long-haul capability.
5. Gen1 UADP line card limitation: All X-series line cards cannot boot or operate with C9600-SUP-1 Gen1 supervisors, unlocking full 50G SFP56 speed and native WAN MACsec via CDR5M 2.0 PHY only on SUP-2Cisco.

2. Hardware & Bandwidth Specifications

Port Composition & Native Speed Support (C9600X-SUP-2 Only)

1. 56 × SFP56 multi-rate downlink ports
   • Auto-negotiable speeds: 1GE, 10GE, 25GE, 50GE
2. 4 × QSFP28 high-speed uplink ports
   • Auto-negotiable speeds: 40GE, 100GE

Transceiver Compatibility

1. SFP56 ports: SFP56 50G/25G/10G optical transceivers, backward compatible SFP28 25G/10G, SFP+ 10G, SFP 1G optics, SFP56 twinax copper short cables
2. QSFP28 ports: QSFP28 SR4/LR4/ER4 100G optical modules, QSFP+ 40G transceivers, QSFP28 copper breakout cables for 4×25G fan-out downlinks

Bandwidth & Throughput

• Fixed per-slot full-duplex bandwidth: 3.2 Tbps non-blocking wire-speed
• Maximum aggregate full-duplex throughput: 3.2 Tbps when all 60 ports run at maximum rated speed simultaneously
• Jumbo frame support: Layer 2–Layer 4 jumbo frames up to 9216 bytes for video streaming, virtualization, storage replication and SD-Access overlay workloads
• Large shared packet buffer pool to absorb burst traffic from dense concurrent 50G downlink and 100G uplink flows

Built-In Hardware Acceleration Features

1. CDR5M 2.0 fifth-generation PAM4 PHY integrated AES-256 MACsec encryption
   • Full LAN MACsec for local fiber trunks
   • WAN MACsec for long-haul cross-campus fiber links (HSEC license mandatory to activate WAN MACsec)Cisco
2. IEEE 1588v2 / 802.1AS PTP hardware timestamping for campus-wide broadcast media, unified VoIP, and industrial control network clock synchronization
3. Wire-speed L2/L3/L4 ACL filtering, QoS policing, marking, shaping, NAT, and full IPv4/IPv6 hardware forwarding at line rate
4. Intelligent transceiver power management to reduce idle power draw on empty unpopulated optical slots

Physical & Power Parameters

• Form Factor: Standard full-width Catalyst 9600 series line card, fits all empty line card slots of C9604R / C9606R / C9610R chassis
• Typical full-load power consumption: 420W maximum rated powerCisco
• Physical weight: 3.75 kg (8.27 lbs)Cisco
• Rated MTBF: 552,180 hours under nominal standard operating environment
• Asset tracking: Embedded passive UHF RFID tag integrated on ejector lever for centralized enterprise asset lifecycle management
• Cooling: Passive multi-heatsink thermal design, fully reliant on chassis side-to-side horizontal airflow; no independent onboard fan
• No PoE capability: This module cannot supply any IEEE 802.3af/at/bt inline power to connected endpoints
• Laser safety: Class 1 laser product compliant for all optical fiber ports

Strict Supervisor & Firmware Compatibility Restriction

• Only supported supervisor: C9600X-SUP-2 Gen2 Silicon One Q200 Supervisor
• Fully incompatible: C9600-SUP-1 Gen1 UADP Supervisor (card will not initialize or power up)
• Minimum required IOS XE release: 17.14.1 or newer firmware version

3. Front Panel Layout & Status LEDs

1. Front panel 3-row port layout:
   • Top two rows: 56 × SFP56 multi-rate downlink ports (28 ports per row)
   • Bottom single row: 4 × QSFP28 40G/100G uplink ports
2. Per-port bi-color link/activity LED for each transceiver slot:
   • Solid Green: Valid optical link established, normal line-rate data forwarding
   • Blinking Green: Bidirectional data transmission/reception active
   • Solid Amber: Link down, missing transceiver, fiber cable loss, or port hardware fault alarm
3. Global module status indicators at card edge:
   • STATUS LED: Green = fully initialized and online operational; Amber = booting / minor warning; Red = critical hardware failure or backplane communication loss
   • LOCATE blue beacon LED: Remotely triggered via CLI/DNA Center to identify the line card during rack maintenance
4. Dual mechanical ejector latches on both sides to support OIR hot insertion/removal without full chassis power shutdown

4. IOS XE Comprehensive Software Feature Suite

Layer 2 Campus & Fabric Aggregation Functions

• IEEE 802.1Q VLAN trunking (4096 maximum VLANs), PVLAN private VLAN multi-tenant isolation
• Cross-line-card LACP/PAGP EtherChannel link aggregation for redundant 25G/50G/100G fiber trunks
• MSTP/RSTP spanning tree toolkit with BPDU guard, root guard, loop guard, UplinkFast fast convergence
• DHCP Snooping, Dynamic ARP Inspection (DAI), IP Source Guard, and MAC address port security
• IEEE 802.3az Energy Efficient Ethernet for idle port power optimization

Layer 3 & SD-Access EVPN Fabric Capabilities

• Hardware-accelerated IPv4 / IPv6 unicast & multicast routing (static routes, OSPF, EIGRP, BGP, IS-IS)
• Up to 32-way ECMP equal-cost multi-path uplink load balancing for high-speed 100G core paths
• Native VXLAN EVPN hardware forwarding for Cisco SD-Access intent-based wired/wireless fabric border and distribution aggregation nodes
• Anycast gateway, LISP host mobility, and large-scale overlay mixed-speed traffic aggregation
• Hardware VRF-lite multi-tenancy segmentation, supporting up to 2,000 independent isolated forwarding tables

Hardware-Accelerated Security Features

• Wire-speed port-level LAN + WAN MACsec-256 fiber trunk encryption (HSEC license required to enable WAN MACsec long-haul encryption)
• TrustSec SGT end-to-end policy segmentation, Encrypted Traffic Analytics (ETA) for hidden malware detection on high-speed fiber links
• Hardware ACL filtering, CoPP control plane policing to protect supervisor CPU resources
• IEEE 802.1X, MAB, WebAuth wired access authentication; AAA TACACS+/RADIUS/LDAP authentication support

QoS & Precision Timing

• 8 independent hardware priority queues per port, WRR/DRR congestion scheduling, per-port policing/marking/shaping at line rate
• IEEE 1588v2 PTP hardware timestamping for broadcast media, unified voice, and industrial network synchronization

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 line card hardware health inspection
• Native seamless integration with Cisco DNA Center for zero-touch provisioning, unified policy management, and full network lifecycle automation

5. Typical Deployment Scenarios

1. Large Enterprise High-Density SD-Access Distribution Aggregation Core
   56×SFP56 25G/50G downlink ports connect massive fleets of Catalyst 9400 distribution switches across multi-building campuses; 4×100G QSFP28 uplinks create redundant high-speed trunks to paired C9606R fabric border core switches, consolidating thousands of wired and Wi-Fi 6/6E wireless endpoints in one chassis slot.
2. Mid-Size Hybrid Data Center Leaf Switch Backbone
   Dense 56-port 25G/50G SFP56 capacity aggregates rack leaf switches, storage controllers and virtualization server clusters; 100G QSFP28 uplinks deliver low-latency inter-spine trunking, hardware VRF logically separates multi-tenant enterprise, cloud and backup storage workloads.
3. Ultra-Large Unified Wireless Controller Aggregation Core
   Massive SFP56 port density aggregates centralized wireless controller clusters supporting tens of thousands of multi-radio enterprise APs; hardware QoS prioritizes low-latency voice, video conferencing and real-time collaboration traffic across campus-wide wireless networks.
4. Multi-Building Education & Government Standardized Campus Fiber Backbone
   Single-slot combo design minimizes chassis slot consumption for future network expansion; hitless OIR hot-swap maintenance meets strict public sector zero-downtime operational requirements, centralized fabric security and bandwidth policy management via Cisco DNA Center.
5. Regional Headquarters Converged Voice/Data/Video Core
   Balanced cost and extreme downlink port density for regional HQ converged networks, supporting legacy 1G campus links, modern 25G distribution downlinks and future-proof 100G uplink capacity without full chassis replacement.

6. Standard Package Contents of C9600X-LC-56YL4C SKU

Separately Mandatory & Optional Add-On Components

1. Mandatory accessories for full operation
   • SFP/SFP56 optical transceivers (1G/10G/25G/50G), QSFP28 (40G/100G) optical modules or copper twinax breakout cables
   • Single/multi-mode fiber patch cords, optical attenuators for long-haul cross-campus links
   • Catalyst 9600 series chassis, C9600X-SUP-2 supervisors, power supplies, and fan trays (sold separately)
2. Optional upgrade hardware & licenses
   • Spare optical transceivers for on-site hot-swap inventory
   • HSEC license required to enable WAN MACsec long-haul fiber encryption
3. Software Licenses
   • DNA Advantage perpetual license required for full VXLAN EVPN SD-Access, 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