Full English Description for Cisco N9K-C9232C

1. Part Number Naming Breakdown

Model: N9K-C9232C

N9K: Cisco Nexus 9000 series cloud-scale data center fixed switch product family
C92: Nexus 9200 compact high-density leaf/spine switch platform
32: Total 32 physical QSFP28 ports
C: Classic generation 100G QSFP28 fixed chassis with multi-rate breakout capability, powered by Cloud Scale ASIC

2. Short Sales One-Liner (For BOM, Quotation & Datasheet Header)

Cisco Nexus N9K-C9232C, 1RU rack-mount cloud data center leaf/spine switch, 32 universal QSFP28 multi-rate 10/25/40/50/100G optical ports, 6.4 Tbps non-blocking switching capacity, dual hot-swappable redundant power supplies and fans, running modular Cisco NX-OS, optimized for leaf aggregation, mid-tier spine layers, IaaS and multi-tenant cloud fabric deployments.

3. Complete Product Overview Paragraph

The Cisco Nexus N9K-C9232C is a compact 1RU fixed-port high-performance Ethernet switch within the Nexus 9200 platform portfolio, purpose-built for leaf and mid-tier spine roles in modern cloud, service provider and enterprise virtualized data centersCisco. Equipped with 32 universal hot-pluggable QSFP28 slots supporting flexible breakout configurations, the device delivers full line-rate Layer 2 and Layer 3 forwarding across all ports with a total switching bandwidth of 6.4 Tbps and a forwarding throughput of over 5.1 billion packets per second (bpps)Cisco. Each QSFP28 port can be independently configured as 1×100G, 1×40G, 2×50G, 4×25G or 4×10G to match mixed-speed server, storage and inter-switch uplink requirements. The chassis integrates dedicated out-of-band RJ45 management, mini-USB console and USB storage ports for zero-touch provisioning and offline configuration management. Dual redundant hot-swappable AC power supplies and N+1 variable-speed fan trays eliminate single points of hardware failure, supporting bidirectional airflow options (port-side intake / port-side exhaust) for flexible rack thermal design. It operates on modular, fault-isolated Cisco NX-OS software, featuring native EVPN/VXLAN overlay routing, hardware MACsec encryption, full streaming telemetry and DevOps automation tooling, enabling scalable multi-tenant fabric architectures without mandatory ACI controller dependency. Ideal for top-of-rack leaf aggregation, mid-tier spine interconnection and infrastructure-as-a-service cloud workloads, the N9K-C9232C balances high 100G port density, breakout flexibility and low 1RU rack footprint.

4. Detailed Hardware Interface Specifications

Main Data Ports (32 × Universal QSFP28 Slots)

Per-port multi-rate breakout options:

1 × 100GBASE-SR4/LR4, 1 × 40GBASE-SR4/LR4, 2 × 50GBASE-SR2/LR2, 4 × 25GBASE-SR/LR, 4 × 10GBASE-SR/LR
Supported transceivers: QSFP28 100G, QSFP+ 40G, SFP28 25G, SFP+ 10G via breakout cables
Non-blocking wire-rate forwarding on all 32 ports simultaneously

Management & Auxiliary Ports

1 × 10/100/1000BASE-T RJ45 out-of-band management port
1 × Mini-USB console port for local CLI access
1 × USB 2.0 Type-A port for firmware upload, config backup and POAP deployment

Power & Cooling

Dual hot-swappable 1200W AC power supply modules (1+1 redundancy, hot-swap live replacement)
N+1 redundant variable-speed fan trays, bidirectional airflow selectable at ordering: PI (port-side intake) or PE (port-side exhaust)
Operating temperature: 0°C to 40°C full load; storage range -40°C to 70°C

Physical Form Factor

Dimension: 1RU standard 19-inch rack-mount chassis, 4.4 cm (H) × 43.9 cm (W) × 45.7 cm (D)
Humidity tolerance: 5%–95% non-condensing; maximum operating altitude 4000m

Core Hardware Performance Benchmarks

Total switching capacity: 6.4 Tbps full duplex non-blocking
Forwarding rate: 5.12 bpps (64-byte minimum frame wire-rate)
Packet buffer: Shared on-chip dynamic buffer for congestion management
MAC address table size: 128,000 MAC entries
IPv4 / IPv6 route table capacity: 128,000 unicast routes
VLAN support: Up to 4094 standard VLANs

5. Core NX-OS Software Feature Suite

Layer 2 & Layer 3 Routing: Static routing, RIP, OSPFv2/v3, EIGRP, BGP, VRRP, PIM multicast
Cloud Fabric Overlay: Hardware-accelerated EVPN/VXLAN, symmetric/asymmetric VXLAN routing, VXLAN multicast optimization
Security: 802.1X port authentication, MAB, DHCP Snooping, DAI, CoPP, hardware MACsec 128/256-bit encryption, TrustSec SGT tagging
Monitoring & Telemetry: Full sampled/unsampled IPFIX streaming telemetry, ERSPAN, SPAN, VSPAN, real-time fabric visibility
Automation & DevOps: POAP zero-touch provisioning, NX-API REST JSON/XML, Python scripting, Bash shell, containerized application hosting, hot patching without reboot
High Availability: Modular fault-isolated process architecture, stateful process restart, ISSU in-service software upgrade, redundant control plane

6. Deployment Use Cases

Top-of-Rack (ToR) leaf switch for 10G/25G server and storage rack aggregation
Mid-tier spine switch for leaf-layer interconnection with mixed-speed breakout uplinks
IaaS / multi-tenant cloud fabric border aggregation
High-density 100G edge for storage network interconnection and disaster recovery links

7. Datasheet Short Summary Paragraph

The Cisco Nexus N9K-C9232C is a 1RU compact cloud-scale data center switch equipped with 32 multi-rate breakout-capable QSFP28 10/25/40/50/100G optical ports, delivering 6.4 Tbps non-blocking switching performance with dual redundant power and cooling. Running feature-rich modular Cisco NX-OS with native EVPN/VXLAN overlay and hardware security acceleration, it serves as a flexible leaf or mid-tier spine switch for enterprise, service provider and IaaS cloud fabrics, supporting DevOps automation and zero-touch provisioning for large-scale virtualized data center deployments.


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