Full English Description for Cisco N9K-C9364C
1. Part Number Naming Breakdown
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N9K: Cisco Nexus 9000 cloud data center fixed switch product family
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C93: Nexus 9300 classic high-performance spine hardware platform
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64: Total 64 QSFP28 multi-rate 40/100G optical data ports
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C: QSFP28 100G-capable base chassis, dual-mode NX-OS / ACI operation, designed exclusively for spine layer deployment
2. Short Sales One-Liner (For BOM, Quotation & Datasheet Header)
Cisco Nexus N9K-C9364C, 2RU rack-mount high-density data center spine switch, 64 universal QSFP28 40/100G fabric ports plus dual dedicated 1/10G SFP+ management uplink ports, 12.84 Tbps non-blocking switching capacity, dual hot-swappable redundant high-wattage power supplies and multiple variable-speed fan trays, dual-operation mode supporting standalone NX-OS or ACI intent-based fabric, built for core spine interconnection, HPC, AI/ML cluster and large-scale multi-tenant cloud data center deployments.
3. Complete Product Overview Paragraph
The Cisco Nexus N9K-C9364C is a high-density 2RU fixed-port non-blocking Layer 2 / Layer 3 Ethernet spine switch within the Nexus 9300 portfolio, purpose-built as the core interconnection spine layer in large enterprise, service provider, ACI and high-performance computing (HPC) data center fabrics. Equipped with 64 hot-pluggable universal QSFP28 multi-rate fabric ports and two independent 1/10G SFP+ auxiliary management ports, the platform delivers full wire-rate forwarding across all data ports with a total switching bandwidth of 12.84 Tbps and a forwarding throughput of 4.3 billion packets per second (bpps) for minimum 64-byte frames.
Ports are grouped into fixed 4-port "quad" ASIC segments; breakout to 4×10G/4×25G is only supported on the first port of each quad, with remaining three ports in the quad disabled once breakout is enabled. Mixed speeds within a single quad are not permitted, and native auto-negotiation is unavailable for 10G operation on QSFP28 ports Cisco. The final 16 rear ports integrate hardware wire-rate MACsec encryption for secure inter-spine and border-leaf fabric links, eliminating separate security appliance overhead.
The chassis integrates a dedicated RJ45 out-of-band management port, mini-USB RS232 console and USB storage interface to support POAP zero-touch provisioning and offline configuration backup. Dual redundant hot-swappable 1400W AC / 2000W DC power supply modules and N+1 redundant fan trays eliminate single points of hardware failure, supporting bidirectional airflow options (port-side intake / port-side exhaust) to match diverse data center rack thermal design standards Cisco.
It supports two independent operating modes: modular standalone Cisco NX-OS for traditional routed data center fabrics, or native ACI fabric mode for policy-driven automated multi-cloud infrastructure. Hardware-accelerated EVPN/VXLAN overlay routing, full streaming telemetry and open DevOps automation APIs enable linearly scalable leaf-spine architectures for virtualization, AI training clusters and multi-tenant IaaS workloads. As a dedicated high-port-count spine platform, the N9K-C9364C maximizes fabric interconnection density to reduce total rack footprint and cut end-to-end fabric latency.
4. Detailed Hardware Interface Specifications
Main Fabric Data Ports (64 × Universal QSFP28 Slots)
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Native supported speeds per quad group: 1×100GBASE-SR4/LR4/ER4, 1×40GBASE-SR4/LR4
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Breakout limitation: Only port 1,5,9,13… of each quad supports 4×10G breakout cables; other three ports in quad are disabled when breakout is active
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Compatible transceivers: QSFP28 100G, QSFP+ 40G; SFP+ 10G via breakout QSA adapters
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Ports 49–64: Hardware MACsec encryption enabled at line rate for secure fabric transport
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Non-blocking wire-rate forwarding across all 64 QSFP28 ports simultaneously
Auxiliary Management Ports
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2 × SFP+ 1/10G multi-rate dedicated management uplink ports
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1 × 10/100/1000BASE-T RJ45 out-of-band management port
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1 × Mini-USB RS232 console port for local CLI access
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1 × USB 2.0 Type-A port for firmware upload, config backup and POAP deployment
Power & Cooling
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Dual hot-swappable power supply options: 1400W AC, 2000W DC, 2000W HVAC/HVDC (1+1 active sharing redundancy, live hot-swap without traffic outage)Cisco
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N+1 redundant variable-speed fan trays, bidirectional airflow selectable at ordering: PI (port-side intake) or PE (port-side exhaust)
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Operating temperature range: 0°C ~ 40°C full load; non-operating storage range: -40°C ~ 70°CCisco
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Humidity tolerance: 5%–90% non-condensing operating; max operating altitude: 4000m
Physical Form Factor
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Dimensions: 2RU standard 19-inch rack-mount chassis, 8.8cm (H) × 43.9cm (W) × 57.1cm (D)
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Fully loaded weight: ~20kg with dual power supplies and all fan trays installedCisco
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Compliance: RoHS-6, NEBS Level 3, 80Plus Platinum high energy efficiency certified
Core Hardware Performance Benchmarks
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Total switching capacity: 12.84 Tbps full duplex non-blocking
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Forwarding rate: 4.3 bpps (64-byte minimum frame wire-rate)
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Shared dynamic packet buffer: 80MB for congestion absorption across all fabric ports
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MAC address table size: 256,000 MAC entries
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IPv4 / IPv6 unicast route table capacity: 256,000 entries
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Standard VLAN support: Up to 4094 independent VLANs
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System memory: 32GB RAM + 128GB onboard SSD storage
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End-to-end cut-through switching latency: Less than 2 microseconds for minimum-size Ethernet frames
5. Core Software Feature Suite (Dual NX-OS / ACI Operating Modes)
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Layer 2 & Layer 3 Routing: Static routing, RIP, OSPFv2/v3, EIGRP, BGP, VRRP, PIM sparse/dense multicast, FCoE storage convergence
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Cloud Fabric Overlay: Hardware-accelerated EVPN/VXLAN symmetric/asymmetric routing, multi-tenant VXLAN segmentation, fabric multicast optimization
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Enterprise & Fabric Security: 802.1X port authentication, MAB, DHCP Snooping, Dynamic ARP Inspection, CoPP, hardware 128/256-bit MACsec encryption on rear 16 ports, TrustSec SGT zero-trust segmentation
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Monitoring & Telemetry: Full sampled/unsampled IPFIX streaming telemetry, SSX hardware statistics export, ERSPAN, SPAN/VSPAN, real-time buffer, queue and fabric link utilization visibility
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Automation & DevOps: POAP zero-touch provisioning, NX-API REST JSON/XML, native Linux Bash shell, Python scripting, containerized application hosting, hot patching without full chassis reboot
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High Availability: Modular fault-isolated process architecture, stateful process restart, ISSU in-service software upgrade, redundant control plane, hot-swappable power and fan field replaceable units (FRUs)
6. Typical Deployment Use Cases
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Core spine switch for large-scale leaf-spine ACI or standalone NX-OS data center fabrics
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Inter-fabric border spine connecting multiple data center pods and disaster recovery sites
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High-density 100G core for HPC, AI/ML training clusters and GPU server aggregation
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Multi-tenant IaaS cloud core interconnection layer with hardware-accelerated fabric encryption
7. Datasheet Short Summary Paragraph
The Cisco Nexus N9K-C9364C is a 2RU high-density spine switch equipped with 64 multi-rate QSFP28 40/100G fabric ports plus dual dedicated 1/10G SFP+ management ports, delivering 12.84 Tbps non-blocking switching throughput with dual redundant high-wattage power and cooling modules. Supporting dual standalone NX-OS and ACI intent-based fabric operating modes, it features hardware EVPN/VXLAN overlay and wire-rate MACsec fabric encryption, serving as the primary core spine interconnection platform for enterprise, service provider, HPC and multi-tenant IaaS cloud data center deployments.
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