Cisco SPA-4X1GE-V2 Full Official Technical Specification Document

1. Product Overview

Official Full Designation

Core Definition

SKU Naming Breakdown

1. SPA: Shared Port Adapter, Cisco I-Flex modular expansion interface architecture
2. 4X1GE: Four independent physical Gigabit Ethernet (1Gbps) ports
3. V2: Version 2 second-generation hardware revision with enhanced ASIC processing, lower power draw and improved thermal performance
4. =: Standard spare part suffix for factory-new standalone replacement kits (SPA-4X1GE-V2=)
5. -RF: Cisco Refresh certified refurbished spare SKU variant (SPA-4X1GE-V2-RF)

Product Lifecycle Notice

• Official Global Release Year: 2011
• End-of-Sale (EoS) Status: Discontinued; Cisco permanently ceased manufacturing new SPA-4X1GE-V2 hardware units
• Direct Upgrade Replacement Models: SPA-8X1GE-V2 (8-port Gigabit SPA V2), SFP+ based multi-port 10G SPAs for modern ASR 1000-X and Catalyst 8000 edge routing platforms
• Minimum Supported IOS/IOS-XE/IOS-XR Software Version: IOS 12.2(33)SRB for Cisco 7600 Series; IOS-XE 3.10S for ASR 1000 Series; IOS-XR 4.2 for CRS Carrier Routing Systems
• Software Maintenance Status: Only critical security vulnerability patches are provided for customers holding active Cisco SMARTnet or DNA Advantage service contracts; no new interface feature enhancements are developed for this legacy V2 SPA
• Legacy Status: End-of-life legacy hardware; certified refurbished SPA units, validated IOS/IOS-XE/IOS-XR firmware images and 24×7 priority Cisco TAC engineering technical support remain available through authorized Cisco global distribution partners

Supported Router & Switch Platform Compatibility

1. Cisco ASR 1000 Series Aggregation Services Routers (ASR1002-X, ASR1004, ASR1006, ASR1009-X)
2. Cisco 7600 Series Service Routers and Catalyst 6500 Series Switches (7600-SIP-400/600 interface processors supporting half-height SPA slots)
3. Cisco 12000 / XR 12000 Series Internet Backbone Routers
4. Cisco CRS Series Carrier Routing Systems
5. Cisco 10000 Series Edge Broadband Routers

Deployment Restrictions

1. OIR operational requirement: Full zero-impact Online Insertion and Removal functionality requires deployment of the minimum specified IOS/IOS-XE/IOS-XR software releases; outdated firmware versions may trigger temporary packet loss or traffic outages during SPA or SFP hot-swap maintenance operations.
2. Half-height slot limitation: This SPA occupies only one half-height SPA bay on a SIP processor card, allowing mixed deployment of other half-height SPAs on the same SIP interface processor.
3. SFP transceiver lock-in: Only Cisco-certified 1000BASE-X SFP optical/copper transceivers are fully validated, monitored and supported; uncertified third-party SFP modules may trigger link flapping, DOM telemetry failure or incompatibility errors.
4. SIP slot resource sharing: Multiple SPAs installed on a single SIP interface processor share the internal Multigigabit Fabric bus bandwidth; simultaneous full line-rate 1G traffic across multiple SPAs on the same SIP may introduce minor forwarding latency under extreme aggregate load conditions.
5. VLAN resource ceiling: Each SPA supports a maximum of 8000 total VLAN logical subinterface entries, with a hard limit of 4000 unique 802.1Q tagged VLANs per individual Gigabit physical port.

Standard Factory Complete Bundle Contents

1. SPA-4X1GE-V2 half-height four-port Gigabit Ethernet Version 2 Shared Port Adapter expansion card
2. Anti-static ESD protective storage bag and custom shock-absorbent foam packaging
3. Quick-start hardware installation guide covering ESD static discharge prevention protocols, SIP slot OIR insertion/removal procedures, SFP transceiver installation best practices, IOS/IOS-XE/IOS-XR SPA interface configuration command reference examples
4. Global product regulatory compliance, electrical safety, and electromagnetic interference (EMI) certification documentation packet

Core Integrated Functional Capabilities

1. Four Independent Hot-Swappable SFP 1000BASE-X Gigabit Ethernet Ports: The SPA provides four separate line-rate 1Gbps physical ports via field-replaceable SFP transceiver slots, fully compliant with IEEE 802.3z Gigabit Ethernet standards. Each port supports auto-negotiation, full-duplex operation and native LAN-PHY Ethernet framing optimized for campus, aggregation and data center packet interconnection workloads. All SFP optics support real-time Digital Optical Monitoring (DOM) telemetry for transmit/receive optical power, laser bias current and transceiver internal temperature tracking via IOS CLI and SNMP monitoring tools.
2. Full Line-Rate Wire-Speed Packet Processing Hardware Offload: Dedicated on-board multi-channel packet processing ASIC unique to V2 hardware revision fully offloads all Layer 2 switching, Layer 3 IP routing, MPLS label switching, QoS traffic prioritization and ACL packet filtering tasks from the host router’s main route processor CPU. The ASIC sustains full non-oversubscribed 1Gbps bidirectional throughput per individual port with zero packet loss under maximum concurrent traffic load. The V2 chipset supports hardware acceleration for IP header checksum calculation, VLAN tag insertion/removal and multi-level MPLS label stack manipulation.
3. Comprehensive Layer 2 Ethernet Feature Suite: Native hardware and software support for enterprise and service provider-grade Layer 2 bridging functions: IEEE 802.1Q VLAN tagging and trunking, IEEE 802.1ad QinQ stacked VLAN termination, IEEE 802.3x full-duplex pause frame flow control, jumbo frame support up to 9188-byte maximum MTU payload size, MAC address-based Layer 2 access control lists (ACLs), BPDU/CDP/VTP filtering and Layer 2 protocol tunneling for Metro Ethernet E-Line/E-Tree carrier transport services.
4. Advanced Layer 3 & MPLS Carrier-Grade Service Feature Support: Fully integrated carrier-grade Layer 3 routing and MPLS transport capabilities, including static/dynamic IP routing protocols (BGP, OSPF, EIGRP, IS-IS), policy-based routing (PBR), NAT address translation, EoMPLS Ethernet over MPLS pseudowires, VPLS virtual private LAN service, MPLS traffic engineering (TE) and segment routing. The SPA supports up to 5000 source/destination MAC accounting entries for ingress/egress traffic metering per SPA card, and up to 2000 destination MAC address filtering entries across the SPA’s four physical ports.
5. Rich Hardware-Accelerated QoS Traffic Prioritization: On-board multi-queue QoS ASIC enables per-port, per-VLAN and per-flow traffic classification, marking, policing and queuing at wire speed without CPU intervention. Supported QoS mechanisms include 802.1p CoS marking, DSCP IP precedence marking, weighted fair queuing (WFQ), low-latency queuing (LLQ) for real-time VoIP and video streaming traffic streams, traffic shaping and hierarchical policing for service provider bandwidth tiering and SLA enforcement policies.
6. Zero-Disruption Online Insertion and Removal (OIR): Full OIR compliance supports hot-swap maintenance for both the entire SPA card within the SIP slot and individual SFP optical transceivers on the SPA front panel. Network traffic on other active SPA interfaces hosted on the same SIP processor remains completely unaffected during hot-swap operations, eliminating costly multi-hour planned maintenance windows for production carrier and enterprise network environments.
7. Unified IOS / IOS-XE / IOS-XR Single-Pane CLI Management: All SPA interface configuration, traffic monitoring, fault troubleshooting and optical DOM telemetry functions are fully managed via the host chassis’s native Cisco IOS, IOS-XE or IOS-XR command-line interface (CLI). Network operators can view SPA hardware status, per-port link state, real-time ingress/egress throughput statistics, packet error counters, SFP DOM optical metrics and hardware fault alarms alongside all other router SIP/SPA interfaces within a single consistent unified management environment.
8. Comprehensive Real-Time Diagnostics & Remote SNMP Monitoring Toolset: Built-in IOS diagnostic utilities for Gigabit port troubleshooting: real-time link up/down state reporting, bidirectional ingress/egress byte and packet traffic counters, granular error frame logging (CRC errors, runt/jumbo frames, collision drops, policy discard packets), per-VLAN traffic metering and SFP DOM optical link health monitoring. The SPA implements standard Cisco SPA/Ethernet interface SNMP MIBs for remote network monitoring, with automatic SNMP trap generation triggered for critical port link failures, SPA hardware faults and SFP optical power threshold violation events.

2. Hardware & Performance Specifications

Core Quad 1G SFP Port Technical Specifications

SFP 1000BASE-X Gigabit Ethernet Interface (LAN-PHY)

• Standard Compliance: IEEE 802.3z Gigabit Ethernet, SFP Multi-Source Agreement (MSA)
• Operating Mode: Exclusive LAN-PHY native Ethernet framing, no SONET/SDH WAN transport overhead
• Supported Transceiver Types: All Cisco-certified SFP optics (1000BASE-SX multimode, 1000BASE-LX single-mode, 1000BASE-ZX long-haul, 1000BASE-T copper SFP transceivers)
• Digital Optical Monitoring (DOM): Full real-time telemetry support for transmit/receive optical power, laser bias current, transceiver internal operating temperature
• Duplex Operation: Full-duplex only; half-duplex operation not supported for Gigabit Ethernet trunk deployments
• Flow Control: IEEE 802.3x pause frame flow control (configurable ingress/egress enable/disable per individual port)
• Jumbo Frame Support: Maximum configurable MTU payload size of 9188 bytes
• VLAN Capacity: Max 8000 total VLAN logical subinterface entries per SPA; hard limit of 4000 unique 802.1Q tagged VLANs per physical Gigabit port

Layer 2 / Layer 3 Forwarding Performance Metrics

• Line-Rate Throughput: Full 1Gbps bidirectional non-oversubscribed wire-speed packet forwarding per individual Gigabit port
• MAC Address Table Capacity: Up to 2000 destination MAC address filtering entries per SPA; maximum 1000 MAC filter entries per individual port
• MAC Accounting Entries: Up to 5000 source/destination MAC traffic metering entries per SPA card
• Supported L3 Encapsulations: IPv4, IPv6, MPLS (all multi-level label stack depths), EoMPLS pseudowires
• Supported QoS Queues: Per-port multiple egress priority queues with LLQ low-latency real-time voice and video traffic support

Front Panel LED Indicator Definitions

1. STATUS LED (Global SPA Hardware Operational State)
   • Off: No power delivered to the SPA card, improperly seated SPA within the SIP slot, or catastrophic on-board ASIC hardware failure rendering the SPA non-functional
   • Solid Green: SPA card powered, fully recognized by the host SIP/route processor, all on-board packet processing ASICs initialized and operational, all four Gigabit ports ready for bidirectional traffic forwarding
   • Blinking Green: SPA undergoing IOS/IOS-XE/IOS-XR hardware initialization sequence during chassis boot or post-OIR hot-swap reactivation
   • Solid Amber: Critical SPA hardware fault detected (ASIC error, power supply anomaly, thermal over-limit alarm) or persistent port-level link failure triggering system fault logging
2. Port 1 LINK/ACT LED (First Gigabit SFP Port Link & Traffic Activity)
   • Off: No SFP transceiver installed in the SPA slot, no valid optical/copper physical layer link detected, or SFP transceiver hardware failure
   • Solid Green: Stable error-free full-duplex 1G physical layer link established with remote connected network device (switch, router, firewall, server)
   • Blinking Green: Active bidirectional data traffic transmitting and receiving over Port 1’s Gigabit SFP link; blink frequency proportional to aggregate traffic load
3. Port 2 LINK/ACT LED (Second Gigabit SFP Port Link & Traffic Activity)
   • Off: No SFP transceiver installed in the SPA slot, no valid optical/copper physical layer link detected, or SFP transceiver hardware failure
   • Solid Green: Stable error-free full-duplex 1G physical layer link established with remote connected network device
   • Blinking Green: Active bidirectional data traffic transmitting and receiving over Port 2’s Gigabit SFP link
4. Port 3 LINK/ACT LED (Third Gigabit SFP Port Link & Traffic Activity)
   • Off: No SFP transceiver installed in the SPA slot, no valid optical/copper physical layer link detected, or SFP transceiver hardware failure
   • Solid Green: Stable error-free full-duplex 1G physical layer link established with remote connected network device
   • Blinking Green: Active bidirectional data traffic transmitting and receiving over Port 3’s Gigabit SFP link
5. Port 4 LINK/ACT LED (Fourth Gigabit SFP Port Link & Traffic Activity)
   • Off: No SFP transceiver installed in the SPA slot, no valid optical/copper physical layer link detected, or SFP transceiver hardware failure
   • Solid Green: Stable error-free full-duplex 1G physical layer link established with remote connected network device
   • Blinking Green: Active bidirectional data traffic transmitting and receiving over Port 4’s Gigabit SFP link

Electrical & Thermal Specifications

Power Consumption

• Typical idle power draw (SPA powered on, no SFP transceivers installed, zero traffic): ~9.5 Watts typical total module power dissipation
• Typical medium-load power draw (four standard LX SFPs installed, moderate mixed 1G traffic flow across multiple ports): ~11.8 Watts typical total power dissipation
• Maximum full-load power consumption (all four ports running full line-rate 1G bidirectional traffic, DOM telemetry continuously active): ≤13.2 Watts maximum peak thermal dissipation
• Power Delivery: 3.3V DC power supplied exclusively via the SIP slot internal backplane bus; no external auxiliary power connectors on the SPA hardware

Thermal & Environmental Operating Parameters

• Certified Continuous Operating Temperature Range: 0°C to 40°C (32°F to 104°F) standard enterprise and carrier datacenter equipment room ambient environment
• Extended Short-Term Operating Temperature Range: -5°C to 70°C (23°F to 158°F) temporary commercial wide-temperature operating range
• Non-operating Storage Temperature Range: -40°C to 85°C (-40°F to 185°F) unpowered long-term storage conditions
• Operating Relative Humidity: 10% to 85% RH, non-condensing ambient humidity
• Storage Relative Humidity: 5% to 95% RH, non-condensing unpowered storage humidity
• Operating Altitude: Certified operational altitude range from -150m to 2000m (-500ft to 6500ft); extended validated altitude support up to 3000m (10,000ft)
• Cooling Design: Fully passive thermal dissipation architecture with integrated stamped aluminum heatsink mounted on the SPA PCB; no onboard rotating cooling fans. Chassis horizontal forced airflow from the host router’s internal cooling fans provides continuous convection cooling across the SPA heatsink under full peak four-port 1G traffic load.

Physical Form Factor & Weight

• Form Factor: Standard half-height Shared Port Adapter (SPA) form factor, occupies one single half-height SPA bay on compatible SIP processor cards
• Bare SPA Module Net Weight (excluding SFP transceivers, cabling and retail packaging): Approximately 320 grams (0.32 kg)
• Physical External Dimensions (H × W × D): 20mm (0.8in) × 172mm (6.75in) × 185mm (7.28in)

3. Regulatory & Compliance Certifications

1. Electrical Safety Standards: UL 60950-1, CSA C22.2 No. 60950-1, EN 60950-1, IEC 60950-1, GB 4943 Chinese national IT equipment safety standard
2. Electromagnetic Compatibility (EMC/EMI) Standards: FCC CFR Title 47 Part 15 Class A, VCCI Class A ITE, EN55022 Class A, CISPR 22 Class A, ICES-003 Class A, CISPR 24, EN 61000 series surge, ESD and radiated immunity standards
3. Ethernet & SPA Architecture Compliance: IEEE 802.3z Gigabit Ethernet, SFP MSA Multi-Source Agreement, Cisco I-Flex SPA/SIP modular interface architecture specifications
4. Environmental Compliance Directives: EU RoHS Restriction of Hazardous Substances directive full compliance, EU WEEE Waste Electrical and Electronic Equipment recycling directive compliant

4. Core Deployment Advantages

1. Modular I-Flex SPA/SIP Quad-Port Gigabit High-Density Architecture Delivers Unmatched Network Deployment Flexibility: The SPA-4X1GE-V2 leverages Cisco’s industry-standard I-Flex modular SPA/SIP design, enabling network architects to mix and match four-port Gigabit Ethernet, five-port Gigabit Ethernet, eight-port Gigabit Ethernet, 10G Ethernet, POS, ATM and other SPA interface types within a single SIP processor card. This eliminates the need to deploy dedicated fixed-port router line cards for multi-port Gigabit aggregation connectivity, allowing customized, scalable interface deployments tailored to exact site bandwidth and service requirements, drastically reducing upfront capital expenditure and eliminating hardware over-provisioning for enterprise and service provider network edge and aggregation points.
2. V2 Second-Generation Hardware Delivers Improved Thermal Efficiency and Reduced Power Consumption: The Version 2 hardware revision incorporates optimized ASIC silicon design, refined PCB thermal layout and improved heatsink structure compared to the original SPA-4X1GE first-generation SPA. The reduced power draw lowers overall chassis power consumption and datacenter cooling operational costs, while superior thermal dissipation improves long-term hardware reliability during sustained full four-port line-rate Gigabit traffic loads.
3. Full Wire-Speed Hardware Offload Eliminates Host Router CPU Performance Bottlenecks: All Layer 2 switching, Layer 3 IP routing, MPLS label switching, QoS traffic prioritization and ACL packet filtering operations are fully offloaded to the SPA’s dedicated multi-channel on-board packet processing ASIC at line-rate 1Gbps throughput per port. This removes all CPU-intensive packet manipulation workloads from the host router’s main route processor, preserving critical CPU resources for core control-plane tasks including BGP/OSPF routing protocol adjacencies, device management and system logging, preventing routing protocol churn, packet latency spikes or service outages during peak four-port aggregate 1G traffic loads.
4. Zero-Disruption OIR Hot-Swap Maintenance Minimizes Production Network Downtime: Complete Online Insertion and Removal (OIR) functionality supports hot-swap replacement of both the entire SPA card within the SIP slot and individual SFP optical transceivers on the SPA front panel without power cycling the host router chassis. All other active SPA interfaces hosted on the same SIP processor continue forwarding traffic without interruption during hot-swap maintenance procedures, eliminating costly multi-hour planned maintenance windows for production carrier and enterprise networks, drastically improving mission-critical Gigabit aggregation WAN service availability and reducing operational maintenance overhead for network operations teams.
5. Comprehensive Carrier-Grade L2/L3/MPLS/QoS Feature Suite Supports Full Converged Service Deployments: The SPA integrates a complete portfolio of enterprise and service provider-grade networking features fully implemented in hardware acceleration, eliminating reliance on slow software-only packet processing. Native support for QinQ stacked VLAN trunking, jumbo frames, MAC ACLs, MPLS pseudowires, VPLS, segment routing, hierarchical QoS and LLQ real-time voice/video prioritization enables operators to deploy fully converged unified communications, broadband residential carrier services, enterprise VPNs and campus/data center interconnection workloads over four-port Gigabit SPA interfaces, removing the requirement for separate dedicated interface hardware for distinct network service types and further reducing total network hardware TCO.
6. Passive Fanless Heatsink Thermal Architecture Delivers Superior Long-Term Hardware Reliability and Low Lifecycle Maintenance Costs: The SPA-4X1GE-V2 utilizes a fully passive convection cooling design with a solid integrated aluminum heatsink, containing no onboard rotating cooling fans. This completely eliminates all mechanical hardware failure risk vectors associated with fan motor wear, dust accumulation, fan power supply faults and airflow blockages, enabling stable 24/7 continuous unattended operation in remote unmanned central office equipment closets, datacenter aggregation racks and off-site regional network edge locations with minimal long-term on-site maintenance requirements. Low idle and peak full-load power consumption reduces overall router chassis energy draw and enterprise/carrier datacenter cooling operational energy costs over multi-year hardware service lifecycles, delivering substantial long-term total cost of ownership savings for large-scale distributed multi-site network deployments.
7. Unified IOS/IOS-XE/IOS-XR Single-Pane CLI Management Simplifies Multi-Platform Network Operations and Troubleshooting: All SPA hardware configuration, port VLAN/QoS/ACL provisioning, real-time traffic throughput monitoring, packet error counter analysis and SFP optical DOM telemetry tracking operations are fully managed through the host chassis’s native Cisco IOS, IOS-XE or IOS-XR command-line interface. Network administrators can monitor the SPA’s operational status, link health and traffic statistics alongside all other router SIP/SPA interfaces within a single consistent unified management environment, eliminating the need for separate standalone interface management software or dedicated out-of-band monitoring infrastructure for quad-port Gigabit SPA line cards. This drastically reduces network administrator training overhead, streamlines network change management workflows and accelerates critical Gigabit aggregation WAN service fault resolution troubleshooting for distributed enterprise and carrier network environments.

Supplementary Product Specification Notes

UNSPSC Classification Code

K9 Security Compliance Note

Factory Hardware Warranty Terms